The origin of Emily and Kobe's newborn son's name is sure to shock viewers.
90 Day Fiancé fan favorites Emily and Kobe are adjusting to being a family of five. ET's Melicia Johnson sat down with the couple in her hometown of Salina, Kansas, where they talked about welcoming their son, Atem, in March and the origin of his name that is sure to shock viewers.
Atem joins his adorable older siblings, Koban and Scarlett. Emily and Kobe revealed to ET that Atem was conceived during their trip to his home country, Cameroon, which is currently being documented on this season of 90 Day Fiancé: Happily Ever After?. Kobe picked out his name, which Emily admits she was initially not a fan of and very much against.
"It was a big argument between us," Emily recalls. "I was not set on the name, right, because Kobe immediately was like, this is what we're naming him and I'm like, 'Whoa, hang on, I don't feel the name.' ... I was like, no, I don't think it's the right name and like, I fought him on it. It was the only thing we really had fights about ever in our marriage."
Kobe explained to ET that he was already set on the name because it was his way of honoring his best friend, whose family he lived with at one point. The best friend is none other than Valerie, whom Emily butts heads with this season.
"So I lived with my best friend's family and that's the family name, Atem, and they've done a lot for me," Kobe explains. "Like almost, like, 10 years ago I'm like, I'm gonna name one of my sons just to say thank you guys for what you guys have done for me because I'm pretty sure without them I wouldn't even know you."
And after her initial protest, Emily eventually came around to the name.
"When he was born and we found out we were having a boy we had agreed on Atem and it felt right and then I was like, OK, the baby was conceived in Cameroon so we wanted a Cameroonian name so it all kind of laid in place," she says.
Kobe adds, "It has a lot of meaning -- the name Atem -- I didn't even know until when I'm like, OK, we're gonna name our son Atem. In German it means like, the breath like you're breathing, fresh air, and in Egyptian, it's like, gift from God."
Emily noted that despite her and Valerie definitely not getting along in Cameroon -- at one point, Kobe dramatically disinvited Valerie to their wedding after Valerie criticized Emily for inviting him and Kobe's friends out to a bar instead of cooking for them at home -- clearly, things have changed.
"So we are on good terms obviously but at first [Kobe] can understand why I didn't want to name our son Atem," Emily says.
As for Kobe passing on his Cameroonian culture to their children, Emily said it was actually her who encourages Kobe to do that more.
"I think I get a lot of backlash too of people online like, 'Oh, you don't embrace his culture enough or you don't introduce his culture to his children,' and I'm like, but I do and also, like, he needs to introduce his culture to the children, we have fights all the time," she shares. "He speaks four languages, do our kids speak any languages? No. So we get into that I'm like, you need to start teaching them French because I don't speak French but I would like to learn, you know, but you do so let's teach them."
As for how they're adjusting to having three children, Emily said so far, it's surprisingly "not that hard."
"But our kids are just really easy kids," she explains. "Like yeah, they're hyper and energetic but I'd rather have hyper and energetic and outgoing kids than boring kids that don't want to do anything or be on TV all day. So really I think the hardest part is giving everyone their own time."
And is the couple open to having more children?
"I want Scarlett to have a sister," Emily says. " ...So we're gonna, not anytime soon, but I'd like to have a two-year gap. All of our kids have two-year gaps so I'm like, maybe once Atem hits 2, we'll talk about it and then if we have a boy then we'll try one more time."
Kobe adds, "It's not like we're fixed on like, oh we're done or, oh, we're gonna have one more, but it's a conversation we're really open to have in the future."
90 Day Fiancé: Happily Ever After? airs Sundays on TLC.
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