These are the most popular baby names inspired by literature
When naming a baby, there are many places to look for inspiration, from trending TV series to celebrity offspring. One source of inspo many of us have right at our fingertips are books and just to make things even easier, research by Flowercard has whittled down the most popular literary baby names to choose from.
To come up with its lists, Flowercard looked at some of the most popular literary works for character names, as well as taking names from sources such as Britannica, The Guardian, Behind the Name and Book Riot. They then looked at government sources to find the number of children born in the US and the UK between 2000 and 2019 with those names and took the total of these.
When choosing names to include, they omitted names that are particularly popular in their own right and only used names that are "instantly recognisable and associated with each character". This meant that names such as Harry for Harry Potter were not included.
Here's what the research found:
Top 10 literary baby names
Luna
Inspired by Luna Lovegood from the Harry Potter Series. Babies born with the name: 44,720.
Matilda
Inspired by Matilda Wormwood from Matilda. Babies born with the name: 29,281.
Holden
Inspired by Holden Caulfield from The Catcher in the Rye. Babies born with the name: 21,493.
Arya
Inspired by Arya Stark from the A Song of Ice and Fire series. Babies born with the name: 21,230.
Juliet
Inspired by Juliet from Romeo and Juliet. Babies born with the name: 19,707.
Rhett
Inspired by Rhett Butler from Gone with the Wind. Babies born with the name: 16,591.
Romeo
Inspired by Romeo from Romeo and Juliet. Babies born with the name: 16,165.
Dorian
Inspired by Dorian Gray from The Picture of Dorian Gray. Babies born with the name: 13,007.
Darcy
Inspired by Fitzwilliam Darcy from Pride and Prejudice. Babies born with the name: 11,942.
Atticus
Inspired by Atticus Finch from To Kill a Mockingbird. Babies born with the name: 11,588.
The research also delved into names traditionally used for boys and girls, honed in on the UK, providing some more bookish name inspiration.
Top literary girls names in the UK
Matilda
Inspired by Matilda Wormwood from Matilda. Babies born with the name: 22,351.
Darcy
Inspired by Fitzwilliam Darcy from Pride and Prejudice. Babies born with the name: 8,036.
Luna
Inspired by Luna Lovegood from the Harry Potter Series. Babies born with the name: 5,898.
Lyra
Inspired by Lyra Belacqua from His Dark Materials. Babies born with the name: 2,825.
Arya
Inspired by Arya Stark from the A Song of Ice and Fire series. Babies born with the name: 2,511.
Top literary boys names in the UK
Romeo
Inspired by Romeo from Romeo and Juliet. Babies born with the name: 1,975.
Dorian
Inspired by Dorian Gray from The Picture of Dorian Gray. Babies born with the name: 699.
Atticus
Inspired by Atticus Finch from To Kill a Mockingbird. Babies born with the name: 682.
Darcy
Inspired by Fitzwilliam Darcy from Pride and Prejudice. Babies born with the name: 603.
Caspian
Inspired by Prince Caspian from The Chronicles of Narnia. Babies born with the name: 465.
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