Baby names from ‘American Gods’?

"American Gods"

Neil Gaiman’s award-winning book American Gods is going to be made into a TV series. Here’s a quick synopsis, courtesy of Nerdist:

For those of you who haven’t read the novel, American Gods centers around a war brewing between old and new gods; the traditional gods of biblical and mythological roots from around the world, who are now steadily losing believers to an upstart pantheon of gods reflecting society’s modern love of money, technology, media, celebrity, and drugs. The lead character, Shadow Moon, is an ex-con who becomes bodyguard and traveling partner to Mr. Wednesday. Mr. Wednesday is a con man who is in reality one of the older gods on a cross-country mission to gather his forces in preparation to battle the new deities.

I don’t know when the show will be on the air (2016?) but Shadow’s name is already being thrown around a lot on social media, thanks to the #CastingShadow social media campaign.

Do you think we’ll see an uptick in the number of babies named Shadow the year the show comes out?

(At least two other Gaiman character names, Coraline and Yvaine, saw increased usage after the books Stardust and Coraline were made into movies.)

Update, July 2020: The show ended up debuting in April of 2017, and the usage of Shadow did indeed increase a bit that year:

  • 2018: 8 baby girls & 10 baby boys named Shadow
  • 2017: 12 baby girls & 19 baby boys named Shadow
  • 2016: 8 baby girls & 7 baby boys named Shadow
  • 2015: 10 baby girls & 11 baby boys named Shadow

Sources: Starz Greenlights Neil Gaiman’s American Gods Television Series, American Gods (TV series) – Wikipedia

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