Pop Culture Baby Names: How Movies and TV Shape the Charts

A baby name that appears in a hit film or TV show in October can show up in the birth certificates the following summer. The SSA records this with extraordinary precision — you can read the cultural history of the United States through the rise and fall of first names.

Here are the clearest pop culture name spikes in the data, with year-by-year numbers.

Madison: The Accidental Revolution

Madison — the defining case study.

In 1984, the film Splash featured a mermaid (played by Daryl Hannah) who chose "Madison" as her name after seeing a Madison Avenue street sign. It was meant to be absurd — mermaids don't have names, and Madison was famously not used as a first name.

The data shows what happened next:

In 2024, Madison is #46. A name that didn't exist before 1984 is now the 46th most common girls' name in the country. No name has ever gone from zero to that level of sustained mainstream use from a single cultural event.

Bella: Two Separate Lifetimes

Bella has an unusual history: it was moderately popular in the Victorian era (1880–1920s), fell to near-zero for fifty years, began climbing again independently around 2000, and then had its trajectory transformed by Twilight.

The Twilight saga (Bella Swan) didn't create Bella from nothing — the name had already been climbing for a decade. But it more than doubled the trajectory almost overnight. The name is now at #109 and declining from its Twilight peak. Still, it has never returned to pre-2000 obscurity: the Victorian name found its way back and Twilight gave it forty years of mainstream use it might otherwise have needed another decade to achieve.

Aria and Arya: Two Spelling, One Phenomenon

Aria (the Pretty Little Liars spelling) and Arya (the Game of Thrones spelling) are the most striking parallel case in the data.

Aria was very small but growing before Pretty Little Liars premiered in June 2010:

Arya tracks almost perfectly to Game of Thrones, which premiered in April 2011:

The two names have different spellings but the same sound. Together in 2024 they account for nearly 8,000 girls — a combined rank that would be inside the top 10. Aria has the larger footprint because Pretty Little Liars ran for seven seasons (vs four peak seasons for Arya's arc) and the -ia spelling works more naturally in English. Arya shows more decline post-finale.

Kylo: Still Climbing

Kylo (Kylo Ren from Star Wars: The Force Awakens, 2015) is one of the most unusual names in current data: a character name invented for a 2015 film that is still climbing a decade later.

Most character names from blockbuster films spike in the year or two after release and then decline. Kylo is different: it spiked in 2016, appeared to plateau, then surged again in 2020 and has continued rising. The 2020 surge may reflect the ongoing popularity of the Star Wars universe via Disney+ (The Mandalorian premiered November 2019) rather than the film itself.

Kylo's sound — a sharp two-syllable name ending in -o — fits comfortably into the current naming trend (Leo, Theo, Milo) in a way that Anakin (504 boys, #593) doesn't.

Atticus: The Literary Name With a Complicated Year

Atticus (from Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, 1960) is the clearest case of a literary name being chosen for the character's character rather than the cultural moment.

The slight dip in 2016 is intriguing. Go Set a Watchman — Harper Lee's second novel, published July 2015 — revealed an older, more morally complicated Atticus Finch. The mild dip in 2016 might reflect parents reconsidering the name after that revelation, though the effect is small and short-lived. By 2017 Atticus was climbing again.

Atticus is now #277. It's the name parents choose when they want to signal a specific kind of literary parenthood — the specific value set of To Kill a Mockingbird — and it shows no signs of stopping.

Archer: The Show Nobody Expected to Change Naming

Archer is perhaps the most surprising entry on this list. The animated spy comedy Archer (FX, premiered January 2010) featured a character named Sterling Malory Archer. Archer as a first name was essentially dormant in the 2000s:

The timing is tight: Archer begins rising sharply in 2009 (the year before Archer premiered), suggesting that either advance buzz moved the needle or it was already beginning an independent revival as a surname-style name. But the trajectory after 2009 is steep and consistent. In 2024 it's #115 — mainstream, not niche. English occupational surnames (Mason, Cooper, Hunter) were already climbing; Archer the show may have given one of them an extra push at exactly the right time.

Names That Didn't Cross Over

Not every fictional name breaks through. The data shows the threshold clearly:

Elsa (Frozen, 2013) peaked at about 800 girls in 2014 and has stayed below 500 since. Frozen's Elsa is one of the most iconic animated characters of the decade, but parents apparently didn't want their daughters identified so specifically with a film.

Katniss (The Hunger Games) has never crossed 15 girls per year in SSA data. Some character names are too specific to one fictional person.

Hermione (Harry Potter) has never crossed 125 per year. The name is too associated with one specific person and is relatively hard to pronounce for English speakers unfamiliar with the Greek origin.

Moana (Moana, 2016) peaked at 141 girls in 2017 and is now below 60. Disney princess names generally don't convert — Ariel from The Little Mermaid is a partial exception, but Ariel was already a name (Hebrew, "lion of God") before the 1989 film.

What makes a fictional name cross over?

The data points to three factors:

The name must sound like a real name. Aria, Bella, and Madison all fit comfortably in the phonetic space of existing English names. Katniss, Khaleesi (see below), and Frodo don't.

The character must be aspirational. Atticus is chosen because of what Atticus Finch represents. Aria/Arya are chosen partly because both characters are smart and unconventional. Kylo is interesting because he's a villain — suggesting the association with the character is secondary to the sound.

The media property must have sustained cultural presence. One-and-done films (Splash, Moana) cause spikes that fade. Multi-year series (Pretty Little Liars, Game of Thrones) create sustained lifts.

Bonus: Khaleesi

A final curiosity. Khaleesi — the Dothraki title used by Daenerys Targaryen in Game of Thrones — is currently #665 among girls' names with 434 babies in 2024. It peaked in 2018 with 564 babies. Parents are giving their daughters a title that translates roughly to "queen" in a language invented for a television show. The fact that it's a title rather than a personal name, and one from an invented language, has not meaningfully reduced its use.

Data: SSA 1880–2024 US release. Pop culture premiere dates from public records.