Elton John names son after church

Sir Elton John's son is named after his favourite church.

The flamboyant musician and his husband David Furnish, 48, became parents to Zachary Jackson Levon through a surrogate mother on Christmas Day (25.12.10) and the pop star has revealed the meanings behind the baby's moniker.

In an interview on British station BBC Radio 2, he said: "Zachary is one of my favourite names. Our favourite church is in Venice where we have a home, San Zaccaria. It was John the Baptist's father's name. And John the Baptist was born three days before Jesus Christ. His birthday was anyway. And Jackson is a name I've always liked and David's dad is called Jack. It's an old English name that means son of Jack. It's just going to be Zachary Jackson and then as he was born on Christmas Day and the song Levon says, 'He was born a pauper to a pawn on Christmas Day,' I chucked that in for a bit of rock star influence."

Elton also explained how he and David "divvied up" their sperm so neither of them knows for sure who fathered the baby.

The 63-year-old singer explained: "On Christmas Day we had our boy and nothing can beat that. He is our boy. Our surrogate son. We don't know whose the baby is. We divvied up the sperm. We'll find out later. He's got my nose and David's ears, what can I tell you."

The 'Your Song' hitmaker insists he is involved in all aspects of raising his son and isn't afraid of changing nappies.

He said: "Am I hands on? We are. I've changed a nappy, yes. Bathed him, changed nappies, read the bed time story."

Elton says they went to great lengths to keep the surrogacy secret, and the media frenzy that has followed them since they announced their happy news confirmed they were right to do so.

He added: "We planned it since last January. We didn't tell many people, we kept it a secret, we had to protect our surrogate. Since we've had the baby it's been a nightmare because we're being followed everywhere in Los Angeles and blah, blah, blah but we expected that so..."