Derek Hough and Hayley Reveal Meaning Behind Daughter’s Name (Exclusive)

Introducing, Everley Capri!

In this week’s PEOPLE cover story, Derek and Hayley Hough open up about finding the perfect name for their newborn after her arrival on Dec. 29.

“Everley was always at the top of a list that I had,” says Hayley. “I actually saw this post the other day that was like, ‘It’s crazy that I’ve seen your name in my notes app for so long, and now you’re here with me.’ I was like, ‘That’s exactly what it’s been.’ Her name has always had a little star by it because there were a few that we really liked.”

Hayley, 31, adds that it took her and Derek, 40, “four or five days” to make a final decision on the name.

“It was almost a week,” says Derek. “We were like, ‘We should probably name her.'”

To make their decision, Hayley says she and Derek decided “to keep staring at her and see what name calls to us.”

When Everley came out on top, they decided to spell the name with same three letters as Hayley’s name. “It’s very intentional, the way we spelled it,” Derek says.

The couple — who got married in 2023 after meeting nearly a decade prior when Hayley performed on Derek’s dance tour with his sister Julianne — were also encouraged by a friend to look up the numerology behind the name Everley, and when they did, it came out to a master number of 11.

“Whether you believe in that kind of stuff or not, it was cool,” Derek says. “When we looked at the meanings of it, it was like, ‘Okay, this is beautiful. We love this.’ It felt right. It just was a feeling.”

Hayley adds that she would see the number 11 “all over.”

“She was 11 days late, I’m born on Oct. 11,” she says. “It just called to us, and we were like, ‘This is right. This is it.'”

Since Everley is the couple’s rainbow baby after a miscarriage last year and because they’d see rainbows all throughout Hayley’s pregnancy with her, Derek initially wanted to incorporate rain or bow into Everley’s middle name. Hayley vetoed it, and they decided to make her middle name Capri instead.

“When we threw Capri in there, we were like, ‘Oh my gosh, this is beautiful,'” Hayley recalls.

Derek adds Capri balances the sweetness of the name Everley. “Capri is the little spicy part of her,” he says.

For more on Derek and Hayley Hough and their baby Everley, pick up the new issue of PEOPLE on stands Friday.