Jenna Bush Hager’s Mom Laura Bush Wanted to Change Grandchild’s Name

Former first lady Laura Bush had thoughts about daughter Jenna Bush Hager’s choice for her firstborn’s name.

“We named our eldest daughter Mila, like a perfectly popular name,” Jenna, 44, said on the Thursday, December 4, episode of Today With Jenna & Friends, also referring to her husband, Henry Hager. “Afterward, my mom called and said, ‘In Texas, they’re calling her My-la, the way you spelled it. Lela is [spelled] L-E-L-A, maybe you change it to M-E-L-A.’”

Jenna, however, was not on board with her mom’s request. (Laura, 79, and her husband, former President George W. Bush, are parents of twins Jenna and Barbara.)

“I was like, ‘You want me to change the spelling of my child’s name because in Texas they are mispronouncing it as My-la?’” she recalled. “She’s now 12, so when we named her Mila maybe it wasn’t quite so popular.”

Jenna further had an impassioned message for any individuals critical of a parent’s name decision.

“Let her be,” she quipped. “Never say it.”

In addition to Mila, Jenna and Henry, 47, share daughter Poppy, 9, and son Hal, 5. The couple live with their kids in the Northeast, where Today is filmed, though Jenna still has hopes of moving back to her native Texas in the future.

“I just think everybody should have chapters in their lives,” Jenna said on an August episode of the morning show. “I have this dream, I don’t know how realistic it is, but when the Jenna & Friends chapters come to a close … I think it’d be so nice to move back to Texas and let my kids have a different life.”

Mila and Poppy even spend time in Texas each summer, where they attend sleepaway camp.

“Texas is a resilient, incredible state,” Jenna said during a July episode, addressing the state’s catastrophic floods that devastated Camp Mystic and other campsites. “You all know I’m a homesick Texan living in New York, and it always is in my heart.”

Mila and Poppy did not attend Mystic and returned home at the end of the summer. Laura, meanwhile, once worked at Mystic as a teenager.

“My mom was a drama counselor there [and] so many of my friends were raised at this camp. Texas camps are institutions,” Jenna tearfully said at the time. “This camp was 100 years old. So grandmothers, mothers, kids have all gone there.”

She added, “Texas has a type of resilience where they’re generous people, where people want to reach out and help. Texas camps are really special because you’re thinking about 90-degree weather, no air conditioning.”

Jenna further revealed that Henry, to whom she’s been married since 2008, once asked why Mila and Poppy attended a camp in the overwhelmingly “hot” Lone Star State.

“It’s because of the love that’s there,” Jenna explained, also paying tribute to Mystic owner Dick Eastland, who died trying to save tens of campers. “The Eastland family is Texas royalty. They raised so many girls and his son, who has passed as well, went to [the University of] Texas, where I went. So many of my friends said he was their summer father. He looked out for his campers. He raised girls to be brave and loving and his legacy will live on.”