New parents tend to name their kids after popular figures in pop culture, even when that figure is the villain.
An AP report showed after the character Kylo Ren appeared in 2015's "Star Wars: The Force Awakens," the name Kylo shot up in popularity. It jumped 2,368 spots to become the 901st most popular boys' name.
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As The Independent noted, other pop-culture inspired names on the list of most popular baby names include Creed and Adonis from the "Rocky" sequel "Creed;" Zayn, after former One Direction singer Zayn Malik; and Kehlani for girls, after singer-songwriter Kehlani Parrish.
The names which decreased in popularity the most were former ones that were popular or associated with controversy in some way. The biggest decreases among boys’ names were Jonael, Aaden, Triston, Freddy and Yaakov.
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The name Gannon, which appears to be a reference to either the Pennsylvania university or the longtime villain of "The Legend of Zelda" video games, also saw triple-digit decreases in its place on the popularity ranking.
Among girls, multiple spellings of “Caitlin” saw the greatest drops.
“It was inevitable,” Laura Wattenberg, founder of BabynameWizard.com, told the AP. “Caitlyn was already falling in popularity. Now it is suddenly controversial.”
Wattenberg said the drop in popularity may not be because Caitlyn Jenner, the most famous Caitlyn in recent years, is transgender.
“Even parents who are huge Donald Trump supporters are unlikely to name their child Donald,” Wattenberg said. “In part, we just want to avoid controversy in picking names.”
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According to the Social Security Administration’s list of most popular baby names, Donald fell 45 spots and is the 448th-most popular boys’ name of 2016.
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