Benedict Cumberbatch squirms from fan moniker, talks Cumber-bombing

Benedict Cumberbatch squirms a little bit when he hears the somewhat salty moniker his legion of fans have assigned themselves.

Host Ellen DeGeneres wanted to talk about “Cumberbitches” when “The Imitation Game” star appeared on her show Wednesday for the first time. That and his penchant for photobombing -- but we’ll get to that in a sec.

The English actor’s unique name lends itself to many permutations, but his die-hard female fans proudly go by the name DeGeneres mentioned, or sometimes the cuddlier “Cumberbuddies.”

“It’s kind of like, squeeze a confession out of me to actually say that word because I actually kind of squirm a little bit about it,” he said.

“I definitely didn’t [name them],” he added. “That’s part of my problem. I just went, ‘Ladies, this is wonderful. I’m very flattered, but has this not set feminism back a little bit? Empower yourselves if you’re going to get silly about a guy with maybe a little bit more of a sort of, you know, a high-regard, self-regarding name.’ ”

The 38-year-old, who again made headlines for photobombing during Sunday’s Golden Globe Awards, explained that DeGeneres’ red carpet team was the reason he Cumber-bombed U2 on the Oscars red carpet last year. He was also a tad tipsy.

“Thanks to your team. You gave me some vodka on the red carpet. If for no other reason I blame that for how high I jumped,” the actor said. (In November, Cumberbatch told Jimmy Fallon he did it because a friend is a huge U2 fan and it was his best opportunity to get a photo with them).

Despite telling a reporter that his photobombing days were over, Cumberbatch still threw himself into a high-profile photo taken during Sunday’s Globes telecast of Meryl Streep with comedian Margaret Cho dressed up as a North Korean member of the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn.

“Meryl Streep and someone from North Korea stood right in front of me for about five minutes trying to take a photograph,” he said. “This is ridiculous; I just jumped up and did it again. Shameless.”

He jokingly backtracked and said it wasn’t really him: “It’s just a cardboard cutout that people carry around.”

DeGeneres also breezed through a few unique baby name suggestions for the future dad, who is expecting a child with fiancee Sophie Hunter. Her picks include Engelbert, Harpsichord, Glockenspiel and Carl.

We still like Cumberbaby.

Follow me on Twitter @NardineSaad.