It’s a baby boy for Carice van Houten and Guy Pearce.

The 39-year-old actress – who plays Melisandre in HBO’s Game of Thrones – took to Twitter to confirm the new arrival with her 73,000 followers.

She shared a string of emojis, before linking fans through to Pearce’s initial announcement on his own Twitter feed.

Speaking about their firstborn child, the actor had written: “A cute little package arrived and told us his name's Monte Pearce. We think we're gonna keep him.” 

The Iron Man 3 star added: “Placenta smoothie anyone? @caricevhouten [sic]”

The name Monte, according to Nameberry, is “an old-fashioned nickname-name that's reclaiming a certain amount of dash and charm”.

It comes from the French name Montague, which means ‘pointy hill’.

Van Houten and Pearce announced their pregnancy in March earlier this year, with the actress cracking more than a few Game of Thrones-related jokes about her upcoming arrival.

Confirming the news on social media at the time, she quipped: “Yes. It's true. Let the shadow baby jokes begin.”

To which Pearce replied: “Nothing like the prospect of a shadowbaby to change your mind about becoming a father!”

The couple, who officially confirmed their relationship in 2015, were referencing the now infamous scene from the season two episode Garden of Bones, in which Melisandre – a Red Priestess of the Lord of Light – revealed that, after sleeping with Stannis Baratheon (Stephen Dillane), she was pregnant.

However, as fans of the HBO show later learned, hers was not an ordinary baby.

In chilling birthing scenes, they watched as she ventured into an eerie cave and welcomed an evil ‘shadow creature’ into the world.

She then spoke with the creature, commanding it to go forth and murder Renly (Gethin Anthony), who had challenged his brother Stannis’ claim for the Iron Throne.

Van Houten – who initially trained as a comedian – will return as Melisandre in the upcoming seventh series of Game of Thrones, which is set to premiere in summer 2017.

It remains to be seen what will happen with her character next. In the season six finale, fans of the HBO show saw her banished by Jon Snow (Kit Harrington) after he learned that she had burned Stannis’ daughter at the stake.

Meanwhile Maisie Williams, who plays Arya, has said that she would love her character to meet Melisandre in the upcoming season – and survive the encounter.

However such an event would, undoubtedly, spell trouble for the Red Priestess, as she is one of the people on the young Stark’s infamous kill list.

In the meantime, van Houten is, judging by her social feeds, focusing on using her maternity leave to relax.

Monte is both the actress and Pearce’s first child.

Image: Rex Features