Zooey Deschanel's daughter sounds like a "pterodactyl".

Zooey Deschanel

Zooey Deschanel

The 'New Girl' actress - who has seven-month-old Elsie Otter with husband Jacob Pechenik - admits she gets worried by some of the babbling sounds her baby makes because she often fears the tot is choking.

She said: "[Elsie] "makes a lot of little, like, pterodactyl kind of noises.

"Like 'ahh, ooh, ahh.' And a noise that sounds like choking. She'll be like 'ah, ah, ah.' And I'll be like, 'What's wrong?' and she'll be like, 'Ha, ha, ha!' "

The 36-year-old actress also spoke about her daughter's unusual middle name, admitting she and her spouse wanted something "wild" to go with her "classic" first name.

Jokingly asked by talk show host Ellen DeGeneres if Otter is a family name, she quipped: "In a sense that we're all mammals."

She then added: "We thought Elsie is a classic name -- a lot of people have grandmas and aunts named Elsie. And then we were like the middle name can be a little bit like wild.

"We both found that we had a mutual love for otters. There were some more normal middle names... but I realised that nobody else likely had the middle name 'Otter.' "