No, Vernon A Did Not Deliberately Name His Sons Liam & Niall After One Direction Members

According to Vernon, Niall was a surprise baby as he and Jayne were not intending to have another kid for a long time. However, once they got over the initial shock, they “went into chill mode”, which is a complete turnaround from when they were expecting their firstborn.

“I remember for the first one, we were very kancheong and had everything ready just four to five months into the pregnancy,” he recalled. “For this one, we were much calmer and were like, ‘Oh, there’s still a few more months, let’s relax’ and only settled everything at the last minute.”

The delivery itself was also much smoother this time around. With Liam, Jayne was in labour for 17 hours and had to undergo an emergency C-section. While Niall was also delivered via C-section, Vernon reported that the entire process “couldn’t be easier”.

“We checked into the hospital at 10.30am to do the registration and stuff, and we did nothing all the way until 1pm when they came to wheel Jayne into the operating room,” he said, adding that he was there with her the entire time. “They started at 1.30pm and by 1.42pm, Niall was born. It was like going into a store to try on clothes and walking out with your shopping bag.”

‘Cos of how effortless everything was, Vernon said he could take the time to enjoy every moment and just calmly look at his newborn son. He also happily declared that he finally got to cut the umbilical cord for the first time.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Muttons In The Morning (@muttons)

“I didn’t even realise that at first! Liam is actually named after Liam Neeson, and I really like the name, while Niall was just something that my wife and I thought of and went, ‘Eh, that’s nice!’ and decided to stick with it,” he explained.

It was only months later, when his fellow Mutton and co-DJ Justin Ang learned of the name and said something along the lines of, “Hey, it sounds like One Direction are getting back together!”, that it clicked for Vernon. “We’ve also been getting comments on social media saying we must really like One Direction, but we don’t! I actually know two Nialls and I’ve always liked the name, so it’s really just a coincidence.”

Not long after giving birth, Jayne shared an adorable photo of Vernon lifting Liam up to have a look at Niall for the first time, but the toddler “was only interested for like [two] seconds”.

“I kind of expected him to be a little indifferent,” said Vernon. “At first he was like, ‘Oh, what’s this other small human being?’ But after that brief moment he started running around in the hospital room. I think he was only sad that mummy couldn’t go home with him, so I had to tell him that mummy will be back in a few days.”

His oldest son Ethan, on the other hand, can’t wait to meet his new little brother and even wanted to skip school to visit them at the hospital yesterday, but Vernon asked him to go tomorrow instead, when he has a day off from classes.

“It’s funny ‘cos whenever he’s with Liam, he seems very indifferent, but he keeps asking about him and now Niall as well. He’s very excited and has been asking me to send him pictures and videos,” Vernon chuckled. “I think it’s a very teenage thing. He has to play it cool and not hang out with little children, but he actually really likes them and cares about them.”

Photos: The Muttons/Instagram, Jayne Tham/Instagram, Vernon A/Instagram