Baby Name Trend Starter / Real Life

Examples of Baby Name Trend Starter regarding Real Life people.

---

Actors

• The name "Emma" was already rising in popularity, but jumped (from thirteenth to fourth place in the States) upon the release of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone with Emma Watson. Since then, it has never been out of the top four and was at #1 in 2008 and from 2014 through '18.
• Thanks to Nichelle Nichols, who played Uhura in Star Trek: The Original Series, there were spikes in popularity of the name Nichelle as a baby name.
• "Jayden", a name that was practically unheard of before The '90s, skyrocketed in popularity after 1998 when Jaden Smith was born, peaking in 2010 as the fourth most popular boy's name.
• "Owen" boomed in popularity after Owen Wilson starred in Anaconda and Armageddon (1998). As of 2019, it's in the top 30 baby names.
• The name "Emilia", once a fairly obscure variant on "Emily", has surged in popularity thanks to the increasing popularity of the actress Emilia Clarke.
• "Liam", an Irish variant of "William", was unheard of in the US until 1994, when it entered the top 1000 baby names, thanks to the release of Schindler's List, featuring Irish heartthrob Liam Neeson. It would skyrocket to number 2 on the list in 2013, thanks to The Hunger Games star Liam Hemsworth.
• In Brazil, ever since a famous actor couple named their son "Enzo" in the late '90s, the name skyrocketed in popularity — "Enzo Gabriel" in particular became the most common composite name in 2009, and outright male name in 2018! A kindergarten class◊ featuring seven "Enzos" went viral, and the name is now memetic as a trendy baby name (for single moms in particular; the female equivalent is "Valentina", which took off without a clear reason). Like "Karen", "Becky", and "Chad", it is also an online slang term: say "Enzos", and others will know you're talking about the current teenage populace in a demeaning way.
• Shortly after Darla Hood became one of The Little Rascals in 1935/36, parents all over the country were naming their baby girls "Darla".
• Tends to happen from time to time with popular Saturday Night Live cast members. For example, the names "Victoria" and "Maya" increased in popularity after Victoria Jackson and Maya Rudolph became regulars on the show.
• "Ryan" exploded as a boy's name in The '70s after Ryan O'Neal starred in Love Story, which (as noted above) did the same to "Jennifer" as a girl's name.
• "Drew" took off first as a boy's name in The '80s, then had a smaller boom as a girl's name in The '90s, thanks to Drew Barrymore.
• The girl's name "Alyssa" had a rapid rise in popularity in the mid-1980s, following Alyssa Milano's Star-Making Role on Who's the Boss?. It went from being ranked at 230 in popularity for girls in 1982 to number 27 in 1990. It dropped slightly, but then saw another boost in the late '90s and early '00s, where it was solidly in the top 15 names for girls from 1997 to 2004, which coincides neatly with her appearance on Charmed (1998).
• "Millie", a diminutive of "Mildred" or "Millicent", started skyrocketing as a girl's name in the US in the late 2010s, hitting the top 200 by 2020, thanks to Millie Bobby Brown's Star-Making Role on Stranger Things. There wasn't a similar boost in the UK or the rest of the English-speaking world despite Brown being English herself, possibly because, in those countries, the name had already been a popular choice since the 2000s.
• "Olivia" became a popular name after Olivia de Havilland starred in Captain Blood.
• "Annette" boomed in popularity in the 1950s when Annette Funicello starred in The Mickey Mouse Club.
• The tragic and sudden early death of River Phoenix in 1993 caused the name "River" to enter the top 1,000 boy's names for the first time the following year, as many parents named their sons in tribute to a talented actor taken too soon (especially one who, before his fatal overdose, was not widely known to have drug problems). As noted on the main page, it has continued to rise since then.
• After Roots (1977) premiered, many parents named their sons "Levar" after LeVar Burton, who played Kunta Kinte in his Star-Making Role. To a lesser extent, it also happened to "Kunta" itself, but to a smaller degree.
• The previously rare boy's name "Denzel" had a large spike in the early '90s after Glory became Denzel Washington's Star-Making Role and won him his first Oscar. It peaked in 1993 after the release of Malcolm X, where he played the title character.
• By 1935, over 40 thousand babies were named Shirley by mothers either in honour of Shirley Temple or in hopes that their daughter would be just as much of a box office superstar as their namesake.
• Since The '90s, "Keanu" has been a not-uncommon boy's name thanks to the actor Keanu Reeves. (It's Hawaiian for "cool breeze", appropriately enough given that Reeves' father is from Hawaii.) It enjoyed a revival in the mid-2010s hand-in-hand with Reeves' Career Resurrection thanks to John Wick.
• The Hollywood debut of Margot Robbie caused her name to shoot up in popularity in the 2010s. Before, it had been a French version of "Margaret" that was uncommon in the Anglosphere, and more often than not spelled "Margo" (which had a similar rise) when it was used.
• Scarlett Johansson did this for her name and variations thereof, the first rise coming in the mid-'00s with her Star-Making Role in Lost in Translation and a second, much bigger rise coming in the 2010s when she was cast as Black Widow starting with Iron Man 2. Since 2015, "Scarlett" has been among the 25 most popular girl's names in the US.
• The popularity of Benedict Cumberbatch in the US was strong enough that it was able to overcome the revulsion that Americans have historically had towards his first name thanks to Benedict Arnold. In 2018, shortly after Cumberbatch played the title character in Doctor Strange (2016), the name "Benedict" re-entered the list of the top 1,000 boy's names in the US for the first time since 1968. What makes it especially notable is that Cumberbatch is a British actor, and Arnold infamously betrayed the US for the British during The American Revolution.

Athletes

• The tragic passing of Kobe Bryant and his daughter Gianna in a helicopter crash caused those names to trend in 2020. Kobe's name had previously spiked in the late '90s and early '00s when he first started playing for the Los Angeles Lakers.
• The name Jalen and other variations was popularized in the 1990s by the basketball player Jalen Rose. Rose's name was a combination of the names of his father James and his uncle Leonard.
• "Brady" saw a large spike as a boy's name in the 2000s due to Tom Brady, the quarterback for the New England Patriots who went on to become one of the winningest pro athletes in American history. The name peaked in 2007 when Brady led the Patriots to a 16-0 "perfect season".^note Though the postseason saw them lose the Super Bowl in one of the biggest upsets in sports history. It fell off just as fast in the late '00s and '10s, though, likely because the Patriots had by that point become the Opposing Sports Team for every football fan west of New Haven.
• The name "Jordan" steadily grew in popularity for boys (and even girls to a lesser extent) in the 80's and 90's due to the meteoric rise of Michael Jordan from college basketball star to NBA legend.
• Colin McRae's 1995 WRC championship win spurred a number of boys named after the Scotsman, among them Kenyan rally driver McRae Kimathi.
• Lots of parents named their sons "Shaquille" in the early '90s after Shaquille O'Neal.
• Happened with "Serena" in the '90s thanks to the tennis phenom Serena Williams.
• Another tennis example, with a kind of racial twist to pepper it. While the celtic Breton name Yannick (one of the variations for the Breton stand-in for Jean [John]) was never rare but mostly confined to its area of origin of Brittany, Yannick Noah's victory at the 1983 French's Grand Slam tournament (Roland-Garros), the first one for a Frenchman there since roughly 70 years, immediately made it fashionable all around France. And as Yannick Noah is visibly half-Black (while his mother was from Britanny, hence the first name), the given name Yannick also became fashionable amongst French Black people, and still is.

Musicians

• R&B singer Aaliyah caused her name to suddenly explode in popularity in the mid-'90s, along with its many variations. The name had originated in the Middle East (deriving from the Arabic `Aliya', which is, roughly, the feminine form of `Ali and means "elevated," "exalted," or "noble") but became more associated with the African American and Latino communities after the popularity of the singer. The name saw a second, minor spike in 1997 after the release of her second album the year before, and as you might imagine, her death in 2001 caused a massive spike in popularity.
• The Backstreet Boys' popularity in Mexico caused many boys around that time to be named Kevin or Brian (often spelled as "Brayan").
• In 2000, Sonny Sandoval, the frontman of P.O.D. and a born-again Christian, gave his daughter the unusual name of "Nevaeh", which is "heaven" spelled backwards. By 2010, Nevaeh had become the 25th most popular name for baby girls in the United States, with most of this popularity coming from evangelical Christian parents. It's also occasionally been misspelled "Neveah", but that's neither here nor there.
• Baby name databases don't seem to have any data for the name "Tevin" before 1990, but it peaks in popularity in 1992 (top 200). In between those two years, an R&B singer named Tevin Campbell had released his debut album and scored several hits off it, and his popularity resulted in many baby boys being given his uncommon first name.
• "Britney", an alternate spelling of "Brittany", saw a spike in popularity in the early '00s thanks to Britney Spears. (The base spelling Brittany itself—an old name deriving from a region of France—and other variations on such, did not see anything similar.)
• While "Taylor" had been falling off from its peak in the mid-'90s by then, it did get a momentary bump in 2008 thanks to Taylor Swift. The One-Mario Limit seems to have kicked in since, however, and the name has continued its decline.
• The same thing happened to "Kanye" in 2004 thanks to Kanye West, with over five hundred baby boys given the name that year.
• Layne Staley of Alice in Chains gave a boost to "Layne" as a boy's name in The '90s. His death from a heroin overdose in 2002 created a second boom that year, and since then it's had a comfortable baseline of popularity due to his status as rock royalty.
• Over four hundred baby boys were named "Elvis" in 1956, and over six hundred in 1957, when the future King of Rock & Roll made his debut. A second spike happened in the late '70s after his untimely death.
• In The Netherlands there used to be only one person named Vajèn (Vajèn van den Bosch, born 1998), whose mother had made up the name. In 2011 she participated in The Voice Kids and made it to the final round, and suddenly there were hundreds of baby girls being named Vajèn.
• The name Kehlani (a variation of a Hawaiian name) became one of the top 1000 names in the U.S. in 2016, around the rise of the American singer of the same name.
• The girls' name Mariah jumped from number 562 in popularity in 1989 to number 69 in 1991, the year after Mariah Carey released her debut album. Fittingly, Carey's parents were inspired by the song "They Call the Wind Maria" (pronounced Ma-rye-ah) from the 1969 film Paint Your Wagon, which was likely a factor in that name with that spelling reaching its century peak of popularity in the 1970s and the spelling with the H on the end receiving a bump in popularity of over 200 places in the same decade. The spelling with the H on the end is more traditional, as it's originally a name from the Bible.
• Upon her international breakthrough in 2011, the English pop singer Adele saw her name jump in popularity across the US and Europe (except in her home country, oddly enough).
• The groundbreaking success of the Tejano pop singer Selena caused her name to skyrocket in popularity in the US in the first half of the '90s. It peaked in 1995 when she was murdered by a Loony Fan, causing nearly four thousand girls to be named after her in tribute and briefly pushing the name into the top 100. In the 2010s, it came full circle when Selena Gomez, herself named after the singer, became a pop superstar and gave the name a second wind of popularity.
• After the release of Whitney Houston's self-titled debut album in 1985, the name "Whitney" skyrocketed in popularity and became the 32nd most common girl's name in the US. It had another small bump in 1993, the year after the release of The Bodyguard.
• Sheena Easton's breakthrough in 1980 with "9 to 5" caused the name "Sheena" to jump from obscurity to one of the 100 most popular girl's names in the US by 1984.
• This was Double Subverted by "Miley" as a girl's name. It saw a spike in the late '00s thanks to Hannah Montana star Miley Cyrus, but fell off just as quickly in the early '10s after she embraced a Hotter and Sexier image post-Disney... only to return in the late '10s as she cleaned up her image, enjoyed a Career Resurrection, and became an elder stateswoman of pop music.
• After Tyrese Gibson released his debut album in 1998, "Tyrese" shot up the rankings of boy's names in the US, and would remain popular through the '00s.
• For girl's names, the same thing happened when Mýa released her debut album that same year and her name similarly exploded.
• In The '70s, the band Captain & Tennille caused a lot of parents to name their daughters "Tennille" after their female singer.
• While the girl's name "Ashanti" had a small boost before then due to the Black Power movement, the debut of the singer Ashanti in 2002 caused a huge spike in the name's popularity that lasted for much of the '00s.

Political and Military Leaders

• Prior to the rise of pop culture, the best way to get people to name their kids after you was to conquer them. As an example, prior to 1066, nearly everyone in England had solid Old English names like Edwin, Edgar, or Athelstan. Once William the Conqueror made the aristocracy Norman French, things changed, and soon nearly everyone was called things like William, Richard, Robert, Henry, or Hugh, names of Continental Germanic (generally Frankish) origin that the Normans, who were originally Vikings (hence "Nor(se)man") but had adopted French ways, brought with them. Interestingly, Henry III created an instance of this by naming his son and heir (who had an illustrious if controversial reign) after the last king of the House of Wessex, Edward the Confessor, reviving the distinctively Anglo-Saxon name "Edward" not only for the English monarchy, but for the English people and for Europe generally (see: French "Édouard", German/Dutch "Eduard", Spanish/Portuguese "Eduardo" and "Duarte",^note Thanks to the later connections between the House of Lancaster and the royal houses of Iberia—namely that the founder of the House of Lancaster, John of Gaunt, was the ancestor of the main lines of the ruling houses of Portugal and Castile. (One of the reasons Henry VIII married Catherine of Aragon was that as a member of the Castilian House of Trastámara, Catherine actually had a stronger connection to the Lancastrian claim to the English throne than Henry VII did, as she was a legitimate descendant of John of Gaunt through his second wife Constance of Castile; Henry VII's Lancastrian claim was through the legitimised bastard children of John of Gaunt's mistress-turned-wife Katherine Swinford, which children had been required to renounce their claims to the throne in exchange for legitimisation.) Descent from John of Gaunt is probably also the reason that a certain junior member of the Portuguese ruling house with an interest in maritime matters was given the name "Enrique" (i.e Henry, as in Henry the Navigator—a somewhat un-Portuguese name at the time, but one with a lot of resonance among the Plantagenets). and Scandinavian "Edvard").
• The British Royal Family:
  • If the family has a new baby, chances are many people will name their kids after the child, as was the case with Charlotte and George.
  • Princess Diana died in 1997. That year and the next, her name suddenly shot up to the 409th and 396th most popular girl names in the UK, after having been outside of the Top 1000; by 1999, it had dropped off again.
  • The name "Victoria" had short bursts of popularity during the Queen's succession (1837), coronation (1838), marriage (1840), Diamond Jubilee (1897), and eventually her death (1901). Since then, she has had this impact on the name in the Anglosphere more broadly; before her reign, "Victoria" was a Latin name, but thanks to her it's seen as one of the most quintessentially English names out there and has been a perennial favorite.
  • In 2011, Prince William, Duke of Cambridge married Catherine "Kate" Middleton. While neither William nor Catherine's names saw any boosts (both names were perennial favorites, anyway), the spotlight put on Catherine's family caused her younger sister Philippa "Pippa" Middleton to become a socialite and writer in her own right, leading to "Pippa" becoming a popular girl's name in the UK.
  • "Meghan" saw a slight bump in 2018 thanks to Meghan Markle's marriage to Prince Harry that year.
• While it is still far from a common name, "Kamala" saw a surge in popularity after Kamala Harris was elected the first female vice president of the United States.
• World War I:
  • In 1918, Italian general Armando Diaz signed the Victory Address, a short document meant to inform the population of the victory against Austria. It was shown in schools, barracks, and town halls, and many children were required to memorize it. The Address ended with the words "firmato: Diaz" (signed: Diaz), which led many to think that "firmato" ("signed") was his name. In the following years, many children were baptized with that name.
  • This happened with "Pershing" in 1918 when the US entered the war and John J. Pershing led the American Expeditionary Forces on the Western Front.
• World War II:
  • "Dwight" saw two peaks in popularity as a boy's name, 1945 and 1953, and remained popular for a while after. The common denominator in both was Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied Commander who presided over the end of the war in 1945 and was elected President of the United States in late 1952.
  • During the war, lots of parents named their sons "MacArthur" as Douglas MacArthur gained recognition as commander of the United States Army in the Pacific. The variant "McArthur" proved the most popular.
  • When the war broke out, lots of parents, not just in the UK but also in her dominions and in the US, named their sons "Winston" in tribute to the UK's wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill.
• If the President of the United States has a name that isn't one of the old standards like "John", "Richard", "Ronald", "George", "Bill", or "Joe", it's likely that a lot of Americans will name their sons after him. After the initial spikes wear off, the continued popularity, or lack thereof, of those names also tracks closely with the popularity of those Presidents.
  • "McKinley" after the election of William McKinley in 1896. Public sympathy after his assassination kept the name popular for some time after.
  • "Theodore", "Roosevelt", "Teddy", and "Ted" after Theodore Roosevelt (who was nicknamed Teddy) ascended to the Presidency in 1901 following McKinley's assassination. As he remained popular for a while after, so did his names. "Theodore" would get a second wind in the 2010s and hit the top 10 in 2021, this time due to TR's internet-fueled reputation as a Memetic Badass and real-life Action Politician making the name a popular choice for parents who want some of his badassery to rub off on their sons.
  • "Taft" after the election of William Howard Taft in 1908. This one rapidly fell off as his administration proved so unpopular that he remains the only President to place third when running for reelection.
  • "Woodrow" and "Wilson" after the election of Woodrow Wilson in 1912. While they remained popular through the decade, conservative backlash against Wilson's economic and foreign policy during The Roaring '20s caused them to quickly fall off.
  • "Warren" and "Harding" after the election of Warren G. Harding in 1920. His corruption scandals caused the names to quickly fall off, as while he was never personally touched by them, they led many Americans to see him as a Horrible Judge of Character. Not even his early death in office redeemed the names, not least because it's been long speculated that it was actually an assassination by his jilted wife, fed up with his extramarital affairs (which spilled out after his death).
  • "Calvin" and "Coolidge" after Calvin Coolidge ascended to the Presidency in 1923 following Harding's death. While "Coolidge" was just a blip, "Calvin" remained popular thanks to Coolidge's image as a decent, steady hand at the helm during a time of economic prosperity.
  • "Herbert" and "Hoover" after the election of Herbert Hoover in 1928. The popularity of both names collapsed as The Great Depression started on his watch and he took the blame for it, with "Hoover" in particular widely used as a prefix for things related to poverty (such as "Hooverville" for a shanty town).
  • "Franklin" after the election of Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932, with "Roosevelt" also getting a renewed bump. This one remained popular well into The '40s as FDR led the country through the Depression and World War II.
  • "Truman" after Harry Truman ascended to the Presidency in 1945 following FDR's death. This one fell off in popularity in The '50s as he was dragged down by his increasingly unpopular handling of The Korean War. It still pops up in Truman’s home state of Missouri, due to the amount of things there that are named after him.
  • John F. Kennedy didn't do this for his first name (a perennial favorite) or his last, but his assassination in 1963 did do this for his middle name, with 125 parents naming their sons "Fitzgerald" in his honor in 1964.
  • "Lyndon" after Lyndon Johnson ascended to the Presidency in 1963 following the assassination of John F. Kennedy. As he was assailed for The Vietnam War and the social crises of the late '60s, this one quickly collapsed in popularity.
  • "Reagan" was virtually unheard of as a first name in the United States before Ronald Reagan became a prominent political leader. After his Presidency, "Reagan" became a trendy name for baby girls, likely spurred by Republican parents wishing to honor the president they admired so much. During The '90s, the Turn of the Millennium, and The New '10s, it was fairly common to meet young girls named Reagan in conservative states. It also was used as a boy's name among the same crowd (albeit less frequently), with the popularity of "Reagan" as a male name peaking in 2004, the year Ronald Reagan died.
• After Barack Obama became President in 2009, bringing his daughters Malia and Sasha into the public eye, the name Maliyah was the fastest growing name in popularity in 2009, and the name Sasha also jumped in popularity. Notably, this hasn't affected the popularity of Natasha, Sasha's rarely-used full first name, which has only decreased in popularity since the family came into public prominence.

Miscellaneous

• In Brazil, two foreign celebrities led to phonetic versions that are still popular to date, Daiana/Daiane for Diana, Princess of Wales and Maicon for Michael Jackson.
• "Paris" saw a huge momentary spike in popularity in 2004, and a smaller but more sustained bump in the late '00s and '10s, thanks to Paris Hilton.
• Cars:
  • While the German automaker Mercedes-Benz had been selling cars in the US since 1958, it was only in The '80s when they dethroned a malaise-era Cadillac as the premier luxury automaker in the minds of many Americans. Hence why "Mercedes" took off as a name for baby girls during that time, as the automaker gave it an aura of poshness. In a way, the name came full-circle, as Mercedes-Benz founder Emil Jellinek named the brand after his daughter^note The name's original meaning is an epithet for the Virgin Mary: "Our Lady of Mercies".
  • The same thing happened to "Portia", as the German sports car manufacturer Porsche also saw a sales boom in the US during that time. Amusingly, the names Portia and Porsche have no relation whatsoever, yet Portia remains a popular girl's name due to sounding like the car company.
  • For boy's names, "Bentley" took off in the late '00s almost as quickly as a Bentley Continental GT, the car that turned what had once been a small, exclusive British marque into a major player in luxury cars.
• The Black Power movement in the '60s and '70s upended many naming conventions for African-Americans. Before, both White and Black people named their sons and daughters using more or less the same pool of "English" given names, but afterwards, there was a surge in interest in indigenous African, Egyptian, Arabic, and even French names among Black people, who saw these names as getting them back in touch with their roots and their heritage and rejecting a legacy tied to slavery. Even after the decline of Afrocentrism by the '90s, these naming conventions stuck around.

---