I think you could write a saga the size of an encyclopedia, or two, about the different motives, hobbies and assumptions that have led parents to call their children one way and not another. So when I read the article that said how Game of Thrones, the fashion series, inspires a new trend in baby names , it was not that I was very surprised.
There are many cases in which, for reasons completely unrelated to our closest nucleus, they have influenced in a more or less important way when choosing a name for our children.
According to statistics from the past 2012, there has been a considerable increase in girls named Khaleesi in the United States and Arya in the United Kingdom.
It should be borne in mind that Khaleesi is not even a real name, but a title (something like queen) that the protagonist acquires in the series, her name is Daenerys Targaryen, but there have been fewer than five girls named like that in 2010, the year the series began to have 146 in 2012.
Regarding the name of Arya, this is at least the name of the character in the series, it has risen 221 positions in the list of most popular names. We can also find 21 Khaleesi, 15 Theons, four Sansas and three Catelyns, names also of other characters from the famous series.
It would be nice to know what the curve has been for the name of Joffrey, another character in the series and one of the most evil and whimsical characters ever seen.
And it is that this of external influences when choosing how we are going to call our son brings a tail and is not something these days. During the years of the rise of the German Nationalist Party (the Nazi party) there was an increase in names like Adolf and the Hitler surname was reason enough to boast, something that of course completely changed throughout the contest to even disappear.
The cinema and the Popes have also always influenced when choosing a name, thus Clark, Superman’s human name has seen its popularity decline since the 80’s, and a name like Juan Pablo became more popular coinciding with the ordination of the pontiff.
Perhaps seen in perspective, we are talking about millions of births, a few hundred does not seem like something to take into account and of course I would care very little if my parents told me that I have the same name as a serial character or that I wear my great-great-grandfather’s, but it is possible that not everyone thinks the same.
The decision to name a child has always been full of controversy. I got to know someone whose parents always refused to give them one, since according to them something like this should be decided by its carrier and not by the parents, of course that had the problem that by some name you have to call the child .
In this country and in many others, the right of parents to name their children is regulated, avoiding that one in a fit of excess of originality or bad temper can give their child a name that marks them, more than normal, the rest of your life and thus you cannot give derogatory names and if I remember correctly, you cannot call your daughter Marcos, no matter how much you like the name or have lost the Chinese.
In my personal field, I can say that the rules we set when choosing the names of our children were that it did not exist in the family, at least in two generations. Now everyone has cell phones, but I always found it funny to call someone’s house asking for your friend and start the conversation by talking to his father. And I recognize that one of the things that did influence the election was not knowing anyone that we did not like to have that name, which is why a couple of them were rejected and that is that one, no matter how much you propose, ends for acquiring nonsense hobbies.
And you, have you named your son after an actor? What rules have you taken into account?
Via | parentdish, behind the name In Babies and More | Most used baby names in Latin America in 2013
