Choosing a baby’s name is one of the sweetest jobs parents ever get. Some couples pick a name from the family tree. Others want something nobody else has.
Riley Keough managed to do a little of both.
Riley is Lisa Marie Presley’s oldest child, which makes her Elvis Presley’s granddaughter. Her husband is Ben Smith-Petersen, a stuntman and producer. In August 2022 the couple welcomed a baby girl, and they kept her name to themselves for a whole year.
Riley finally shared it in her Vanity Fair cover story in August 2023. She introduced her daughter with three simple words: “This is Tupelo.”
For Elvis fans, that name means something. Tupelo, Mississippi, is the small town where Elvis was born on Jan 8, 1935. It’s where the whole story started, long before Memphis and Graceland.
But here’s what Riley liked about it. Outside the most devoted fans, hardly anyone thought of the Presleys when they heard the word. Memphis would have been an obvious family name. Tupelo felt quiet, almost private, a family nod that didn’t need to announce itself.
And then the timing got in the way.
Riley told Vanity Fair, “It’s funny because we picked her name before the Elvis movie.”
That’s the “Elvis” movie from director Baz Luhrmann, starring Austin Butler as the King. It premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2022 and opened in US theaters on June 24, 2022. That was about two months before Riley’s baby girl arrived.
And where does that movie begin? In Tupelo.
Suddenly the quiet little family name was everywhere. Here’s how Riley described it, in her own words:
“I was like, ‘This is great because it’s not really a well-known word or name in relation to my family. It’s not like Memphis or something. Then when the Elvis movie came out, it was like, Tupelo this and Tupelo that. I was like, ‘Oh, no.’ But it’s fine.”
Two words, “Oh, no,” and then a shrug. Any parent who has watched a “unique” baby name turn popular overnight will feel that one.
What’s lovely is how quickly she made peace with it. “But it’s fine” is the sound of a mom who loves the name too much to let a little movie buzz spoil it. And honestly, there are worse things than your daughter sharing her name with the place where her great-grandfather’s life began.
If you’ve never seen the small town that gave Riley’s daughter her name, this tour of Elvis’s birthplace and the museum there shows you around.
A tour of Elvis’s birthplace in Tupelo, Mississippi
Little Tupelo turned 4 in August 2026. She’s growing up with a name that ties her straight back to the very beginning of her family’s story, whether the rest of the world catches the connection or not.
And if the movie made a few more people notice? Riley seems to have decided that’s just fine.