This Game of Thrones character wins Iron Throne for baby names, and it's not even close

Let's say you are having a baby, and you're also a major fan of Game of Thrones. The temptation would be huge to name the child-that-is-promised after one of the characters, wouldn't it? After all, there are more than a few real-life Anakins and Frodos in the world. Still, however, which name from Westeros/Essos would you pick? According to the data from 2018, one name stands far above all others.

According to information obtained by Joe Murphy (Digital Editor for NBC News) from newly released social security data, the most popular real-life Thrones name beats all others by a margin of well over 2,000. The winner for 2018, with at least 2,545 babies being named after them, is a girl who at one point who had no name at all...Arya Stark of Winterfell. 

Murphy tweeted the top listings, and nobody comes remotely close to matching Arya. To be fair, the list doesn't include Thrones names that are also common in the real world — if it did, "Jon" would probably be pretty big. Still, in terms of names that are somewhat unique to the world of Thrones, the runner up is Tyrion...who had 58 babies named after him. There may be 58 Tyrions, but there are 2,487 more Aryas. Seven hells! 

Brienne makes a decent showing with 33, but that's also not an uncommon name. She is followed by a few Jorahs and Sansas, and that's before the craziness starts. 

There are 14 children out in the world named Theon (?), and 21 children have been named after members of the Clegane family. In a few years there will be at least eight little kids named Daenarys, and they will always have very interesting first days of school. 

What's also curious are the names that don't appear on it. Cersei obviously isn't a very popular choice, and neither is Euron. There don't seem to be any little Littlefingers, and we'd wager that we won't be meeting Night King Smith in a few years. Probably for the best. Even if there was a real-life Night King Smith, there are over 2,000 Aryas ready to take him on. We like those odds. 

Who will take the "Baby Name Iron Throne" in 2019? It's hard to imagine anything other than another Arya sweep. 

For more Game of Thrones coverage, read about how the Thrones Concert Experience is going back on the road, Emilia Clarke swearing that she doesn't even drink Starbucks, and how the Arya "Mary Sue" argument needs to be put to rest.

A girl trained for seven seasons, and a girl got 2,545 children named after her. Beat that, Varys!