It’s traditional among Ashkenazi Jews to name a new baby after a deceased loved one. And comedian and former SNL star Pete Davidson did just that with his firstborn daughter, whom he named after his late Jewish father, Scott Davidson, a New York City firefighter who died saving lives on 9/11.
On Instagram, Davidson’s girlfriend, the model and influencer Elsie Hewitt, shared pictures of their newborn “perfect angel girl,” born on Dec. 12, and revealed her name: Scottie Rose Hewitt Davidson.
“I am absolutely overflowing with love and gratitude and disbelief,” Hewitt wrote on social media, adding a statement from Davidson, who isn’t on social media: “wu tang forever.”
Davidson was just 7 when his father died on 9/11. The firefighter was helping people evacuate from the Marriott downtown before the North Tower of the World Trade Center collapsed on the hotel. He was on shift with Brooklyn’s Ladder 118. All six men on that shift were killed that day, after helping evacuate hundreds of people from the rubble.
Davidson was too young to understand his father’s death, but it definitely left a mark on his youth. He dedicated his 2o2o film, “The King of Staten Island,” to his father, and while he wasn’t close to his maternal grandparents, he was very close to his paternal grandfather, Poppy, Stephen Davidson. Poppy was also featured in “The King of Staten Island” and was the person who gave Davidson, 32, the Yiddish title of his 2023 show, “Bupkis,” which Davidson explained is a Yiddish term that means “nonsense or nothing.”
“My grandpa used to say it all the time growing up,” Davidson told Charlamagne tha God. “Like, ‘You don’t know bupkis!’ or ‘This is bupkis!’ We just thought it was a fun title. … He’s a big fan of TV and film, and he got a kick out of it.”
Despite the constant use of Yiddish, Davidson didn’t know that he was Jewish until the 2010s, when he took a DNA test showing that he was 48% Jewish. His mother, who raised Pete and his sister, Casey, in her Catholic faith, revealed to him for the first time that his father was Jewish.
“I’m just an Irish Jew,” he shared in a 2017 interview. “My mom was Irish, my dad was Jewish. I just found out, like this year. … I always wanted to be Jewish.”
Well, he just honored his dad in the most beautiful Jewish way possible. We wish Davidson and Hewitt a very hearty mazel tov, and we are so happy the SNL star is entering his Jewish dad era.
