Awhile ago, I asked the rhetorical and somewhat sarcastic question, "I wonder how many brand new baby Bellas and Edwards and Jacobs we're going to meet in the next 5 years?" I know about the Twilight phenomenon. If anything, I'm one of its newest followers, though by no means a "Twi-hard".
But any of these pop culture explosions ends up having long-lasting effects, in music, fashion, slang, and yes, baby naming. For example, my name "Meg" is partly inspired by the character from The Thorn Birds, which came out as a TV mini-series in 1983, a year before I was born.
So I had to ask... Will Twilight create a bubble of inspired baby names? Long story short, HELL YES. The first book was released in 2005, and ever since, character names have appeared and risen on lists of the "Top 100 Baby Names of 200-" variety, from BabyNames.com. Here's the Coles Notes version:
Appearing on the top 100 in 2004: Isabella (#7) and Jacob (#7).
Appearing on the top 100 in 2009: Isabella (#2), Jacob (#8), Bella (#18), James (#27), Alice (#40), Jasper (#42), Emmett (#54), Edward (#65), Victoria (#74) and Esme (#84), and Rosalie (#88).
Champ: Isabella ranks #2 for two years in a row, 2008-09.
...Imagine if Stephenie Meyer had named her heroes and heroines Gertrude, Irving, Ernest, or Horace? Could she have resurrected those names, or would she have lost readers?
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