‘Caitlin’ and its variations plummeted in popularity as a baby name in the year after Caitlin Jenner came out as transgender, according to new government data.<\/b>
\nApparently parents think the Dark Side looks super fun.
The name Kylo \u2014 as in the \u201cStar Wars\u201d villain Kylo Ren \u2014 is now one of the top 1,000 most popular names for boys in the United States, according to new data on baby names released Friday by the federal Social Security Administration.
There were a total of 238 Social Security card applicants named Kylo born in 2016, making it the 901st most popular boy\u2019s name for the year. It\u2019s by far the boy\u2019s name that has grown the fastest in popularity since 2015, when the year\u2019s highest-grossing movie, \u201cStar Wars: The Force Awakens, \u201d introduced movie fans to Kylo Ren, who \u2014 spoiler alert \u2014 kills his dad with a lightsaber. Insert Freud joke here.
The most popular boy\u2019s name in 2016, by contrast, was about as old and biblical as it gets: Noah.
Of 3,929,560 applications for Social Security cards for people born in 2016, a total of 19,015 \u2014 or nearly 1% of the boys \u2014 were for Noah, which has now occupied the top spot for four straight years.
Find your name: Top U. S. baby names in 2016 \u00bb
Rounding out the top five most popular boys names are Liam, William, Mason and James.
The big story for girls is in the four names that dropped the farthest in popularity in 2016: Caitlin, Caitlyn, Katelynn and Kaitlynn. All four variations dropped out of the top 1,000.
The shift corresponds with a landmark cultural event in 2015: the former Olympian and reality TV star Caitlyn Jenner coming out as a transgender woman.
Jenner appeared on the cover of Vanity Fair and was the focus of widespread media coverage about transgender issues at a time when more and more lawmakers began battling over whether to restrict transgender people\u2019s use of public bathrooms.
A Quinnipiac poll from June 2015 showed that swing-state voters had deeply mixed or uncertain feelings about their attitudes toward Jenner.
That kind of unease can put off parents who might be thinking about giving a similar name to their new child, according to Jennifer Moss, the founder of BabyNames.com, a website that provides assistance for parents trying to figure out how to name their kids.
\u201cBaby names can be affected by pop culture, definitely. Other than family, pop culture has come out No. 2 for what influences baby naming, \u201d said Moss, whose website has surveyed new parents about the struggles they face in naming children.
Moss recalled another example in the annals of baby-naming: the decline of \u201cMonica\u201d babies.
\u201cThe name \u2018Monica\u2019 was on the rise in the\u2019 90s because of the show \u2018Friends\u2019 when it first came out, \u201d said Moss, referring to the character of Monica Geller, who was played by Courteney Cox .
The show, which premiered in 1994, would go on to become one of the most popular sitcoms of all time. In 1997, the name \u201cMonica\u201d had risen to become the 79th most popular name for baby girls
But in early 1998, news reports first identified White House intern Monica Lewinsky as having an affair with President Clinton. The name \u201cMonica\u201d turned into the punchline for a million raunchy jokes as a sensational scandal unfolded.
\u201cIt just dropped off the chart after that, \u201d Moss said. In 2016, Monica was the 589th most popular baby girl\u2019s name.
The most popular girls\u2019 names in 2016 were Emma \u2014 No. 1 for the third year in a row \u2014 followed by Olivia, Ava, Sophia and Isabella. Emma and Olivia each accounted for about 1% of all baby girls.
\u201cThe old-fashioned \u2014 kind of what they call the grandma names \u2014 are still in for girls, \u201d Moss said.
That could change quickly. \u201cJennifer was the top No. 1 name for a decade, and nowadays if you see something like Emily or Hannah or Emma, they might stay at the top No. 1 spot for two or three years, and then they start dropping off, \u201d Moss said.
The Social Security Administration has data going back more than a century showing the names and dates of birth of people applying for cards.
But it wasn\u2019 t until 1997 that an actuary at the agency named Michael Shackleford began using the data to compile and publish lists of the most popular baby names.
The Southern California native had an ulterior motive. He thought there were too many Michaels.
\u00ab\u00a0When I was growing up in Orange County, there was always two or three Michaels in every class, \u00a0\u00bb said Shackleford. \u00ab\u00a0My whole life I\u2019 ve been surrounded by Michaels among people my own age. It makes you feel unoriginal, like one of many.\u00a0\u00bb
His wife was pregnant and he wanted his child to avoid the same fate.
\u201cIt was my goal to help parents avoid a popular name if that\u2019s what they wanted to do, \u201d said Shackleford, who now runs a gambling consultancy in Las Vegas and a website called Wizard of Odds.
Shackleford’s plot to end the dominance of Michael may have worked. Between 1954 and 1998, it was the most popular boy’s name for every single year except 1960. But soon after the list started being published, Michael dropped out of the top spot and never returned. It’s now the eighth most popular name.<\/p>\n

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