There aren't enough fingers to count off all the famous people who were born in Georgia.
Here's a brief look at how much, or how little, the legacy of three of them may have determined what Georgians named their kids.
>> A look at the faces who have Georgia's most popular baby names
Jimmy Carter
At first glance, it looks like the names James and Jimmy surged during Carter's presidential term. From 1977 to 1981, James remained in the top three most popular baby names in Georgia, according to data from the Social Security Administration.
The name Jimmy stayed consistently in the top 80 most popular names in Georgia during that same time.
But the trend may not have had much to do with Carter.
The name James was already popular for Georgian parents. It was the No. 1 name every year in the 1960s and stayed in the top 10 names throughout the 2010s. What's more, the name Jimmy was actually more popular before Carter's run for president. It was in the top 40 names from 1960 to 1968.
Ray Charles
The name Raymond stayed in the top 100 popular names throughout Charles' most popular years in the '60s and '80s. But the name Ray only made the top 100 names once in the past 55 years. It was the 91st most popular name in 1960 — right in the middle of Charles' first successful recording years.
Coincidence?
Gladys Knight
No question: Knight is an accomplished Atlanta figure.
She and her younger siblings and cousins formed Gladys Knight and the Pips when she was still only 8 years old.
The group began to hit it big when they started recording with Motown Records in the 1960s, and won a Grammy in 1973 for Best Pop Vocal Performance with the song "Neither One of us Wants to be the First to Say Goodbye." Knight then went on to have her own solo career in the '90s.
Click on the chart below to discover more trends in popular Georgia baby names. Did your favorite celebrity have any affect on baby names?
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