Why Dax Shepard Got a Tattoo Instead of a Wedding Band

Dax Shepard and Ellen DeGeneres

Michael Rozman/Warner Bros

By Tim Nudd

@nudd

09/19/2014 AT 11:45 AM EDT

He doesn't wear a wedding band. But Dax Shepard now has something perhaps even more special on his ring finger.

The Parenthood actor, who stars in the new movie This Is Where I Leave You , recently honored his wife Kristen Bell by getting a tattoo of a bell on that finger, instead of sporting the traditional ring.

"I don't like wearing jewelry, but I felt obliged to warn all the men that I'm taken," Shepard jokes Friday in an appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show . "I thought a tattoo would be fitting. And her last name, conveniently, is an object I could tattoo."

Shepard's wedding tattoo

Michael Rozman / Warner Bros

The actor also points out that the tattoo includes the letters K, L and D – for Kristen, their 17-month-old daughter Lincoln and … well, presumably Dax, although the actor joked that it might be the initial of baby No. 2, which he and Bell are currently expecting.

"Dellen," Shepard, 39, says. "Dellen Egeneres."

They know the baby's sex but are keeping it a secret again this time – "It's going to be a surprise ... to America," he quips – although Shepard may have slipped (or did he?) in discussing his or her future ambitions.

"She'll be able to hopefully transition right into taking this show over," he jokes to DeGeneres, before adding: "Now we're really using the female pronoun, and now it's getting really dicey."