Chris O’Dowd & His Wife Have Two Sons With Really Adorable Names

Chris O’Dowd has a very specific kind of charm. Some might call it Irish charm because he is indeed from Ireland, but it’s more than that. He gives off a sort of comforting, consistently funny presence that keeps us coming back for more in movies like Bridesmaids and television series like The IT Crowd and now his new Apple TV+ series, The Big Door Prize. And it’s probably what keeps his wife and kids loving their life with this charmer as well. Here’s what you need to know about O’Dowd’s loving family.

His wife turned down his Facebook friend request three times.

Before O’Dowd met his future wife, British writer Dawn O’Porter, at her 30th birthday party in 2011, their mutual friend Nick Frost had encouraged him to connect with her on social media. And he tried to do just that, sending her a friend request on Facebook, which she rejected. Not once, not twice, but a total of three times. Why? O’Dowd explained to Marc Maron on his WTF podcast that his profile wasn’t exactly enticing at the time. “My Facebook picture was of an old Floridian woman and I think I had a fake name also.” Apparently sparks flew when they did meet at her birthday party in London, because the day after they met, as O’Dowd recalled to Maron, O’Porter told her sister she had met the man she was going to marry.

They married in 2012.

The couple tied the knot in 2012 at Portland House in London, which they both announced on Twitter with a pair of hilarious tweets, per People. “I guess he liked it cuz he put a ring on it,” O’Porter tweeted at the time while O’Dowd tweeted, “I’m so bored with all the sex and happiness. I’m getting married.” He did go on to add, “I’m a very happy and lucky boy,” which will become something of a theme for O’Dowd over the next decade.

They welcomed son Arthur in 2015.

O’Dowd and O’Porter welcomed their oldest son Arthur “Art” O’Porter in 2015, and shared the news with a hilariously bizarre tweet at the time. “It's a boy! @hotpatooties & I would like to introduce Art O'Porter, our gorgeous baby. Well, I'm pretty sure he's ours,” O’Dowd tweeted with a photo of a baby’s body and a combination of the couple’s features for a face.

Their son Valentine was born in 2017.

The couple went slightly more traditional when announcing son Valentine had joined the family in July 2017. O’Porter shared a photo of her baby boy in a duck onesie (no face shown for privacy purposes) and the caption, “Happy to announce I am the proud owner of this chirpy little chap. Born July 1st, his name is Valentine O'Porter, and he is so delicious. Two sons, my goodness.”

O’Dowd also shared the photo on Twitter. “We had a baby boy last week. Woohoo!” he wrote in 2017. “His nappy expenses are ridiculous, so this baby is going ‘Cheep.’”

Their sons are little artists.

In 2022, O’Dowd shared on Instagram that he had been encouraging his sons to interpret words through art. And they really came through for him. “Been setting drawing projects for the boys where they need to interpret a word,” he wrote at the time. “Our 7-year-old, correctly suggests this creature is scary because it has a big scary mouth and a big scary bum and nobody knows which is which.”

The actor also shared a photo of his 4-year-old’s take on “smelly” and it was something. “Our 4 year old is showing some advanced minimalistic interpretation of big themes at a relatively young age, but I don’t want ye to be intimidated,” he captioned the drawing.

They’re all three “lucky boys.”

To celebrate Mother’s Day in 2020, O’Dowd shared a rare collage of photos featuring his wife and two sons with the message, “What a lucky bunch of boys we are. Happy Mother’s Day.” The family currently lives in Los Angeles, so they celebrated Mother’s Day in May.

Their whole family appears to be a lucky bunch indeed.