Luna, Maddox, Bear: How celebrities and their kids are setting baby naming trends

Jackie Bruno got the idea for her firstborn son’s name while reading an article titled “10 Celebrity Names You Shouldn’t Name Your Child.”

Bruno was scouring the internet back in 2015 for ideas but kept coming up empty-handed. But when the article mentioned Bear, the name of Clueless star Alicia Silverstone’s son, Bruno was sold on it as a middle name. Of course, not everyone was keen on the idea at first.

“My mom exclaimed, ‘Over my dead body,’” Bruno, the owner of Newsmaker Marketing in Boston, recalled. Fast-forward eight years and Jack Bear is “a rambunctious, funny and adventurous boy.” His name is the perfect fit, says Bruno.

In the world of baby naming, Bruno isn't alone. Celebrities have served as the launch pad for some of the most popular children's names out there, catapulting names like Luna, commonly known as the name of John Legend and Chrissy Teigen’s 7-year-old daughter, into the baby name popularity stratosphere. And clearly, it has an effect on the rankings: When the Social Security Administration's list of top baby names for 2022 was recently released, Luna landed in the number 10 slot for American baby girls, 8,922 of whom share the name.

Laura Wattenberg, the creator of Namerology.com and author of The Baby Name Wizard, attributes the initial rise of Luna to the Harry Potter series, which features a character named Luna Lovegood. But it wasn't until Teigen and Legend used it for their eldest daughter that it reached the top 10. Wattenberg says the name is an example of a style known as “raindrop names.”

“It’s not a nickname, but a tiny little full name that is completely smooth and has no hard sounds in it,” says Wattenberg. “So Luna, Liam, Emma, Noah.” Sure enough, each of those names earned a top 10 slot for 2022.

“And then it got an extra boost from a celebrity baby,” adds Wattenberg. “It fit the moment perfectly.”

Sometimes a name that was once considered almost trademarked by a star becomes part of the mainstream. Kate Mistretta, an American currently living in Rome, Italy, named her almost 2-year-old daughter Luna because she and her husband wanted a short name that was easy for Americans and Italians to pronounce. It wasn’t until later that they realized how popular it is.

“We thought it was unique until we looked it up!” says Mistretta. “It’s more common in the U.S. than Italy.”

Over the years, there are names that have become synonymous with celebrity offspring. Consider names of the early aughts, like Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin's daughter Apple, or Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt's six kids with unique names like Zahara and Knox. Kimberly Moralda, a Millis, Mass.-based HR director, snagged the name Pax as a nickname for her son Pasquale after reading online about the second-oldest Jolie-Pitt child.

“Buried within one of the [baby naming] sites was the name Pax, with a mention that this name came into popularity after Angelina Jolie changed her adopted son's name from Pham Quang Sang to Pax Thien Jolie-Pitt in 2007,” Moralda recalled. Her source of inspiration isn't all that rare: Wattenberg says Jolie's nfluence on baby names has been significant.

“Maddox and Shiloh were probably the two biggest, most influential {names],” says Wattenberg, citing two of the star's other children.

Of course, one concern of many parents is the potential for a name to be considered too unusual. Colleen Slagen, a Boston area-based nurse practitioner who moonlights as a baby name consultant, says some people like the validation that using a celebrity baby name provides.

“They don't necessarily want to be the first person to do something, but they'll happily be the second. When you hear a celebrity use it, it still feels like, ‘Yeah, I've never heard that before. I don't know anyone with that name. I'm going to use it and it's going to be unique.’ But it also has this lofty stamp of approval,” says Slagen.

In other words, parents want to participate in the trend, but not be the original catalyst for it. But you might also catch parents throwing out a disclaimer that their baby's name has nothing to do with the celebrity who actually inspired it.

"The fact that people won't own up to having been inspired by celebrity babies is very much part of our times,” says Wattenberg. "You can see statistically that celebrity baby names do have an effect.”

The Kardashian effect on baby names is a strong example of that. Think of Stormi Webster, the daughter of Kylie Jenner and Travis Scott, and Saint West, the son of Kim Kardashian and Kanye West. Both names have experienced a significant jump in the latest data: In 2022, there were 341 babies born in the U.S. named Stormi, and 907 named Saint. Before 2020, those names didn't even crack the top 1,000.

Blair Gyamfi, co-founder of the podcast, digital platform and motherhood community Moms Actually, was inspired by Kardashian’s son Saint when naming her own daughter.

“I loved the name Kim K. chose for her first son, Saint. Of course, I couldn’t pick that name because I didn’t want to copy and it starts with an S,” says Gyamfi, who was looking for a name that started with an N. “So I started thinking of names that represented similar character traits. And that’s how we came up with Noble’s name.”

Gyamfi’s choice echoes Wattenberg’s belief that parents aren't really looking to name their baby after celebrities and their offspring— they’re just looking for creative, fresh inspiration wherever they can find it.

“Parents are putting a lot of pressure on themselves to be creative and find something unusual that will stand out,” says Wattenberg.

Ultimately, the obsession with what parents name their children could be just an indicator that raising children is an inherently chaotic process. You can't determine what type of child you will get, but you can give them a name you think fits.

“Looking back, it’s one of the only things you have full control over,” says Bruno.

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