People find inspiration for their baby names in all kinds of places. Some go through their lives certain what they’ll call their kids. Others commemorate family members, or have a serendipitous moment, like their baby being born in the cab on the way to hospital and proudly naming them Uber.
And some watch Disney films. It makes sense – Disney is, of course, massive and its canon contains some of the most iconic and well-loved pop-culture characters of all time. It stands to reason that plenty of people take inspiration from them – one mum even named her baby Disney though she did admit that she regretted her choice.
Now, nursery equipment company Play Like Mum has gone through more than two decades of birth records to see which Disney films have inspired the most children’s names. Records going back to 1996 were scoured for Belles, Ariels and Simbas.
[Read More: I Regret The Unusual Baby Name I Gave My Son]
Topping the chart, in a surprise to no one, is Frozen heroine Elsa, a name sported by more than 3,000 little girls since the film’s 2013 release.
It would be interesting to know where in the sibling order all these Disney children come. Like, it would make sense to assume that second and third children are more likely to be named after kids’ characters, as parents are probably more likely to be watching cartoons than non-parents. Right?
Of course, a lot of these names pre-date Disney, and exist outside of its world. Donald Duck wasn’t the first Donald, and these days even the most ardent devotee of animated ducks might think twice about the name given who is currently in the White House. Unless you live in Scotland, perhaps.
Below is a list of the 20 favourites and you can view the full top 40 here.
Some further thoughts. There are three kids named Aladdin walking around, and three kids named Hercules. That is just hella awesome. Those kids will get every job they ever apply for, and they’ll clean up on Tinder in years to come – because who wouldn’t swipe right on an Aladdin?
Kids named Woody peaked in 2016, despite the Toy Story films coming out in 1995, 1999 and 2010, with a fourth coming out this year. It’s worth nothing that Woody Harrelson was also in five films in 2016. A coincidence, I think not.
If the 406 people who named their daughters Ursula did so after watching The Little Mermaid (which they possibly didn’t – there’s always Ursula Andress, Ursula K Le Guin and Phoebe’s twin sister from Friends), then maybe they weren’t paying enough attention, as she is the baddie. Same goes for the 92 little Jafars running around.
Nobody called their kid Wall-E. What a travesty. Or Beast. “This is my son, Beast,” is super cool. Shame.
All the top five, and at least seven of the top 10 Disney-inspired names are girls’ ones. Winnie The Pooh is a male bear, but you don’t meet a lot of male Winnies.
Finally, there are 56 Timons but no Pumbaas. That seems unfair. Then again, Timon has the Shakespearean connection – Timon of Athens – while Pumbaa is a Swahili word for an idiot. Fair enough.