Here’s how often people are naming their kids after ‘Harry Potter’ characters
It all started with the Boy Who Lived back in 1998. From there, lots of new parents looked down at their newborn baby boys and thought, “let’s call him Harry.” Or, “Ron.” Or, “Severus.”
It’s no surprise that pop culture greatly influences baby names. While Harry has been a somewhat common name for the last century, other names from the series have been making a huge splash among babies. The website MooseRoots decided to figure out just how popular HP names have become over the last two decades, and set to chart the most popular 25 names of the series (including the likes of Dudley and Draco).
For instance, in 2001 Hermione ranked at baby girl name #15,344; two years later in 2003 it had jumped WAY UP to #2,671. Clearly, parents were looking down at their newborns and thinking, “One day, she’s going to be the smartest out of everyone, so let’s give her a name to match.” Right now, Hermione sits at rank #2,962, with 57 babies in 2014.
Another name that’s been trending up is Viktor, with 157 babies born in 2014, and Sirius that has seen a steady rise in popularity since the 2000s. 24 brand new babies this year will one day grow up to be awesome godfathers.
As for Bellatrix, 12 baby girls were given that name in 2012, and 9 in 2014. There were also 46 baby Minervas in 2014. Feel like those have gotta be really hard names for a toddler to say, but at least the little ones have awesome HP loving parents.
The name Harry itself continues to sit pretty high up on the charts around the world. It actually ranked a lot higher back in the 1940s and 50s, but this past year, we got 355 brand Harrys in the United States. That’s nothing compared to England, where there are now 5,888 new Harrys waiting for acceptance letters to Hogwarts.
You can check out the full results here, and while they might be alarming, at least no one has named their baby Scabbers. Yet.
(Image via Warner Bros.)
