Beyoncé’s mother Tina Knowles said that her younger daughter Solange’s name was inspired by a trip to France she took with her ex-husband Mathew Knowles.
The fashion designer, 70, who is mother to Beyoncé, 42, and Solange, 37, with Mathew, 72, explained the backstory of her younger child’s name while appearing Thursday on The Run-Through with Vogue Podcast.
‘Solange came from – I went to Paris when I was about 32 – well, when I got pregnant with her,’ Tina said. ‘I bought a baby name book in Paris for my girlfriend and she was gonna have a baby.
‘And then the next year I wound up having a baby so I pulled that old book out.’
Tina said that the book was published in the French language and the name stood out to her when she was studying it.
Beyoncé’s mother Tina Knowles, 70, said that she named her younger daughter Solange’s name was inspired by a trip to France she took with her ex-husband Mathew Knowles, 72
‘Solange was conceived on the Nile in Egypt, and I thought I was having a boy, and I wanted to name him Niles,’ Tina said. ‘But little did I know, here came this girl, and so yeah, that’s where I got her name.’
Tina – who also spoke about Beyoncé being bullied as a child in the interview – said she feels ‘names are important.’
Mathew and Tina Knowles exchanged vows in 1980, welcoming Beyoncé in 1981 and Solange in 1986.
Solange has spoken about the origins of her name in a 2017 chat with The Standard as she promoted her 2017 Orion’s Rise tour in support of her album A Seat At the Table.
‘I had some revelations, in terms of my parents finding out they conceived me in Egypt after visiting the Giza pyramids,’ Solange said, ‘and connecting to that and the constellation of Orion that aligns with Giza.’
Solange, whose 17-year-old son Julez Smith was seen earlier this month at the Met Gala, has a tattoo of the Orion constellation on her right arm.
Beyoncé has past made references to Egypt in her material, including her 2019 track Nile from The Lion King: The Gift album.
Tina said of her younger daughter: ‘Solange was conceived on the Nile in Egypt and I thought I was having a boy, and I wanted to name him Niles’
Solange shared a shot posed with her mother and sister in September of 2022
Tina and Mathew separated in 2009 after her divorce filing, which was finalized two years later amid news that Mathew was father to a son named Nixon Knowles with actress Alexsandra White, born in February of 2010.
Mathew in July of 2013 wed one-time model Gena Charmaine Avery in a ceremony neither Beyoncé or Solange went to.
Tina began dating Poltergeist actor Richard Lawson in 2013 and the couple were married on April 12, 2015. She filed for divorce from him last summer after eight years of marriage.
