Mariah Carey, Whitney Houston & Aaliyah are Top Musicians Who’ve Inspired Baby Names
If you know a lot of girls named Mariah. Whitney or Aaliyah, there's a reason for that. Names.org published a list of the Top 20 musicians who inspired baby names, and Mariah Carey, Whitney Houston and Aaliyah topped it.
The extensive list not only calculates the Top 20 musicians who've inspired baby names, starting from the beginning of their careers, but also includes the number of babies named after the artist, and spikes of kiddos with their namesakes corresponding to their biggest peaks of popularity. Mariah leads the pack with a whopping 98,000 children named after the pop star. The late, great Whitney Houston came in second, with 80,000 little girls named after the diva, and the star we lost too soon, Aaliyah, rounded out the top three with 79,000 children donning her namesake.
Male musicians made the list too. Or, one, at least. Zayn Malik has been inspiring the naming of little Zayns since becoming part of One Direction back in 2010. A modest 46 babes were named after him that year, and the number only got larger and peaked at 741 in 2016, which, unsurprisingly, was the same year he went solo.
You can find the detailed list here. For an easily digestible cheat sheet, check out the list below.