More than 4,500 American children were named after Game of Thrones characters in 2018 — and 13 were named Thanos

Game of Thrones might not have aired any episodes in 2018, but that didn't stop its characters from continuing to inspire thousands of baby names.

New data from the Social Security Administration shows that last year, more than 2,500 U.S. children were named after Arya Stark by parents who were probably downright thrilled with the Battle of Winterfell a few weeks ago. Arya was the 119th most popular female name of the year, in fact, up from 135th in 2017.

In total, more than 4,500 children were named after Game of Thrones characters in 2018, with some of the popular names including Yara, Lyanna, Daenerys, Renly, Tyrion, and Brienne, per NBC News.

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Having a fairly small amount of screen time didn't prevent characters like Lyanna and Ellaria from being unexpectedly high up the list, surpassing even major characters like Bran and Theon. Daenerys was used 163 times (and the misspelled "Daenarys" 8 times), though "Khaleesi," prevailed with 560 uses.

This, of course, doesn't factor in names that are already pretty common outside of Game of Thrones, like Jon, which was used 311 times.

Give or take a Gregor, most of the popular names came from the show's heroes. But not everyone was against naming their children after famously hateful characters. The data also shows an alarming number of people in 2018 — 13, to be exact — named their children Thanos after the genocidal maniac from the Avengers franchise, observes Namerology.

There were also 251 babies named Kylo after the Star Wars villain, making for a lot of parents who must be crossing their fingers for his redemption in The Rise of Skywalker. As for all those children named Thanos, well, reality is often disappointing. Brendan Morrow

Editor's note: This story has been updated to reflect a larger total and the correct spelling of "Daenerys."