As Kayla Itsines celebrated her first Mother’s Day as a mum, she shared the personal story behind her baby daughter’s name – Arna Leia Pearce – with her millions of followers on Instagram.
Kayla, who welcomed her first child with partner Tobi Pearce on April 30, posted a photo of the “incredible women” in her life, including her grandmother, mother Anna and sister Leah, in celebration of Mother’s Day.
She captioned the photo: “What I would like to do today, is share with you something personal and very close to my heart. The meaning behind the name Tobi and I chose to give our beautiful baby girl, Arna Leia Pearce.”
The 27-year-old fitness entrepreneur explained that when choosing her baby girl’s name she wanted a name that was “somewhat Greek and traditional by passing on the names of my family through to the next generation”.
“Our daughter Arna Leia is named after my incredible mother, Anna and hilarious sister, Leah,” she wrote.
Kayla went on to explain that in Greek, Anna is ‘Avva’, so she and Tobi decided to go with ‘Arna’ as “this spelling is the closest to the pronunciation in Greek”.
“It was to our delight that in other cultures the name Arna means ‘strength’. We thought that was so beautiful!” she added.
Kayla and Tobi also chose ‘Leia’ as it is the Greek spelling of Leah.
“We chose these names to preserve my family’s proud Greek heritage,” she said.
Kayla and Tobi first shared the happy news about their baby in April this year.
“I just stared into Tobi’s eyes the whole time during delivery, nervously whispering ‘please let her be healthy, please be okay, please be okay’ and Tobi kept repeating ‘I love you so much – she’s going to be healthy it’s okay just breathe it’s okay’. We both were crying,” Kayla wrote of her delivery at the time.
According to the post, baby Arna was delivered via cesarean. Kayla described her as “a happy, quiet bubba who LOVES her big Greek family”.
Kayla said she felt “blessed”.
“I am blessed to have Tobi and my family be there every day. I am so thankful to have the most amazing doctor and midwives ever to help me. This experience has been amazing for me and I am proud to say that. Thank you everyone for being SO amazing!! We are so in love and happy. Holding her for the first time in our arms was truly the best day of our life.”
Kayla, the 27-year-old behind the Bikini Body Guide (BBG) and SWEAT app, shared a gender reveal video with her 10.7 million Instagram followers in January this year.
“It’s a ….. [girl] AWWW!! @tobi_pearce screamed “YYYESSSSSSS!!!!!” (and I ate half the confetti, it’s fine) WE ARE SOOOOO EXCITED!!” the Adelaide-based personal trainer captioned the video of her fiancé Pearce popping the balloon to reveal pink confetti.
Kayla and Tobi announced they were expecting their first child on Instagram last December.
“Tobi and I do not even have words to describe how happy and excited we are to bring you this news! If you don’t know already, I come from a big greek family. FAMILY is always what comes first in my life. To be able to start my own family with the person I love most in this world is just an absolute dream come true,” she wrote.
“@tobi_pearce has been SO supportive, SO EXCITED and so loving! He comes home every day, hugs and kisses my stomach. He lays on my legs and asks the baby how it’s day was. He is at every scan and every appointment. I couldn’t ask for a better partner. Our family, well haha.. you can just imagine – they are of course ABSOLUTELY OVER THE MOON EXCITED. I know you are already picturing the look on their faces when we told them,” she added.
The couple announced their engagement in April, 2018, after six years together.
Together, the pair created the BBG plan and the SWEAT app, which has earned them a combined net worth of $423 million and a place AFR’s 2018 Young Rich List.