Oprah Names Son: Oprah Announces She Named Deceased Baby Boy ‘Canaan’

Oprah named the son that she lost when she was just a teenager, and she announced the name she chose for the deceased baby during a recent appearance at the Rod Laver arena in Melbourne. According to the Daily Mail, the former television talk show host addressed the crowd of 12,000 and opened up to them about the baby she gave birth to after she was raped at the tender age of 14.

“I did have a son. And I named him Canaan because Canaan means new land, new life,” Oprah said.

This is one of the few times that Oprah talked about the baby, who died prematurely, shortly after childbirth.

Oprah named her son 40 years after his death because she talked to a reporter recently who encouraged her to give the child a name. Perhaps it was for some sort of healing purposes, but whatever the reasoning, Oprah decided to share her decision with this particular crowd.

“I did an interview with a reporter before I came to Australia and she said you should name the baby son who died. So I have named him, I had a little boy named Canaan,” Oprah said.

As many people know, Oprah Winfrey was molested as a child. She was raped when she was just 9-years-old by one of her cousins and later molested by two different family members. She says that it was these experiences that helped mold her into the person that she is today. She used these terrible acts to make sure that she was successful in life and used this as motivation to be “excellent.”

This is part of the message that Oprah was trying to convey on this first stop on her Australian tour.

As Oprah names her son Canaan, the deep meaning behind the name, the acceptance, and the level of forgiveness that is behind it stands out to people.

“I’m here to help you turn up the volume in your life. I have a calling, you have a calling. If you are born, there’s a reason for you to be here. The point of the journey we’re all on is ‘how do you become more of yourself?’ Nobody can touch you because you are as authentically you as you can be,” Oprah told the crowd.

Aside from Oprah naming her son and letting people know that she had chosen to do so, the billionaire also talked about her life growing up in the then-segregated state of Mississippi. She spoke about her upbringing and how she lived with her grandmother who had “no electricity nor a washing machine.” Of course, that is a far cry from the life that Oprah lives now — but it certainly seems to put things into perspective.

According to the New York Daily News, Winfrey previously opened up about the depression that she suffered after getting pregnant and giving birth to her son. She even said that she “contemplated suicide” because of what had happened to her. Though tragic, Oprah Winfrey has felt that the death of her baby boy offered her a sort of “second chance” at life.

“I went back to school, and nobody knew. Because had anybody known at that time, I wouldn’t have been able to be head of student council,” Oprah told Piers Morgan in 2011. “I wouldn’t have been chosen as one of the two teenagers in the state of Tennessee to go to the White House conference on youth. None of those things would have happened, and the entire trajectory of my life would have been different,” she added.

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