Eight thieves — six men and two women — all dressed in red jumpsuits, all donning Salvador Dalí masks — break into the Royal Mint of Spain (in Madrid) with the aim of printing 2.4 billion in Euros over 11 days, then making a clean getaway.
That’s what happens at the start of the Spanish-language crime drama series Money Heist, which became a worldwide hit in 2018, thanks to Netflix.
Upon the success of the first two seasons of the show (which had originally aired on Spanish TV in 2017), Netflix renewed Money Heist — producing and releasing three more seasons over the next three years.
Impressively, Money Heist: Part 3, Money Heist: Part 4, and Money Heist: Part 5 currently rank 5th, 3rd, and 2nd (respectively) on Netflix’s list of most popular non-English TV series of all time.
So…what does this have to do with U.S. baby names?
Well, to maintain their anonymity, the eight thieves went by city-inspired code-names: Tokyo, Moscow, Berlin, Nairobi, Rio, Denver, Helsinki, and Oslo.
While Moscow and Helsinki have never appeared in the U.S. baby name data, the six other city names have — and each one saw higher usage after Money Heist premiered on Netflix.
Let’s start with the biggest boosts…
Nairobi
(female character, played by Alba Flores)
Female usage of the baby name Nairobi began accelerating in 2018. (That massive jump in 2020 corresponds to a tragic Part 4 plot-twist.) Right now, the name is sitting just outside the girls’ top 1,000.
- 2021: 241 baby girls named Nairobi [rank: 1,044th]
- 2020: 215 baby girls named Nairobi
- 2019: 65 baby girls named Nairobi
- 2018: 37 baby girls named Nairobi
- 2017: 23 baby girls named Nairobi
- 2016: 21 baby girls named Nairobi
Rio
(male character, played by Miguel Herrán)
Male usage of the baby name Rio has risen significantly since 2018:
- 2021: 396 baby boys named Rio [rank: 672nd]
- 2020: 303 baby boys named Rio [rank: 776th]
- 2019: 193 baby boys named Rio
- 2018: 171 baby boys named Rio
- 2017: 132 baby boys named Rio
- 2016: 134 baby boys named Rio
Denver
(male character played by Jaime Lorente)
The baby name Denver, which was already on the rise for boys, began rising even faster in 2018:
- 2021: 577 baby boys named Denver [rank: 505th]
- 2020: 540 baby boys named Denver [rank: 526th]
- 2019: 422 baby boys named Denver [rank: 638th]
- 2018: 370 baby boys named Denver [rank: 674th]
- 2017: 273 baby boys named Denver [rank: 821st]
- 2016: 268 baby boys named Denver [rank: 840th]
Oslo
(male character, played by Roberto García Ruiz)
Male usage of the baby name Oslo has been rising steadily since 2018:
- 2021: 49 baby boys named Olso
- 2020: 38 baby boys named Olso
- 2019: 29 baby boys named Olso
- 2018: 22 baby boys named Olso
- 2017: 14 baby boys named Olso
- 2016: 12 baby boys named Olso
Tokyo
(female character, played by Úrsula Corberó)
The baby name Tokyo, which had appeared in the data as a boy name a couple of times, finally debuted as a girl name in 2019:
- 2021: 10 baby girls named Tokyo
- 2020: 15 baby girls named Tokyo [peak usage]
- 2019: 7 baby girls named Tokyo [gender-specific debut]
- 2018: unlisted
- 2017: unlisted
- 2016: unlisted
Berlin
(male character, played by Pedro Alonso)
Male usage of the baby name Berlin increased slightly in 2019 and 2020:
- 2021: 26 baby boys named Berlin
- 2020: 29 baby boys named Berlin
- 2019: 17 baby boys named Berlin
- 2018: 11 baby boys named Berlin
- 2017: 9 baby boys named Berlin
- 2016: 5 baby boys named Berlin
Which of the above names to you like best? What other city names do you think work well as human names?
Sources:
- “La casa de papel: Profiling a successful actor.” Life Style Magazine 25 Sept. 2018.
- Money Heist – Wikipedia
- Most Popular TV (Non-English) – Netflix Top 10 – Global
- SSA
P.S. Why were city names used as code-names on Money Heist? Álex Pina, the show’s creator, explained during an interview in 2018 that he’d been trying to come up with a theme for the code-names when, “one day, someone turned up with a T-shirt bearing the word Tokyo and that’s how it all began.”