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Khaleesi only had something like 200 people given the name, not popular in general but for a GoT original name? Yeah. Katniss is probably around the same. Bella/Isabella was already moderately popular... Isabella was already in the top 10 girl names before Twilight, after having been rising steadily since the 90s so who's to know whether or not Twilight had anything to do with its continuing popularity. It's hard to know whether a character affects name popularity when they have a "normal" name, unless there's a tremendous jump in usage. Hermione for example jumped from not even existing on the charts to the 300s by 2002, and Trinity jumped from the 500s prior to Matrix to 200s in 1999 (when the movie was released), and broke the top 100 by the following year-- those jumps clearly had to do with the character. But again, there's not knowing whether people are actually naming their kids after the character or just because they happened to hear the name and liked it. In my hometown, a few people named their daughters Eowyn following the release of LOTR, and over the years it's kept popping up in the BAs. I doubt there's that many Eowyn/LOTR stans in my hometown who love the character/story enough to name their kids after it... they likely just happen to see the name in the paper or meet a local Eowyn and think it's pretty or something.

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Anyway, I actually made a post not too long ago here about our own name tastes being influenced by pop culture: http://www.behindthename.com/bb/baby/4516399

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I've got quite a few names on PNL that I picked up from movies, tv, video games, comics, etc

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My PNL = http://www.behindthename.com/pnl/37275

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Top: Henry & Lara (main) / Caspian & Briar (GP) / Leon & Georgiana (top25)
Bottom: Trajan & Jacoba (main) / Dinadan & Melpomene (GP) / Corvo & Ourania (top25)

This message was edited 4/11/2014, 10:59 AM