Popularity of Girls Named After Disney Princesses

For my project, I was curious as whether or not the popularity of the names of Disney princesses would increase after the movies came out.

My testable hypothesis is that the frequency of the names in the population would increase in the years following a big Disney movie starring a notable princess. In order to test that, I picked seven movies that are spread across the 20th century with major female characters.

To graph them, I limited the babynames data set that we downloaded into R and limited the data to that name and the sex of female as shown below:

I wanted to get a general trend of whether or not the movie influenced the name, so I limited the data available on those names to five years prior to the movie’s release and 15 years after:

With the amount of time prior, you can tell what the general trend is before the release of the movie and 15 years following allows you to figure out if/how much a name was influenced by the movie. I then plotted the graphs using a ggplot function and added an annotation to mark which year the movie was released:

The results for the seven names are shown below.

One of the most iconic fairy tales, Cinderella is about a girl who is forced to work by her stepsisters, which was made into a movie in 1950. Through it all, she maintains a positive outlook on life and finds her Prince when she sneaks out of the house one night and goes to a ball. They fall in love in the most cliché way possible.

There is a slight increase in the number of babies named Cinderella around the time of the movie. By looking at the data table more specifically, that might be because the number of times the name was used doubled, but the peak was only at 23. With that few people named Cinderella, it’s almost impossible to make a conclusion as to how the movie affected the name. But it’s certainly possible considering the huge spike.

ALICE – from Alice in Wonderland (1951)

A young girl when she first visited magical Underland, the movie focuses on a teenaged Alice who has no memory of the place, except in her dreams. Her life takes a turn when she spots a certain white rabbit and tumbles down a hole after him. Reunited with her friends the Mad Hatter, the Cheshire Cat and others, Alice learns it is her destiny to end the Red Queen's reign of terror.

Alice was on a decline before the movie came out in 1951, and continued on that trend through the end of the analysis. Because of that, I would say that the name Alice, even though it was a pretty common name, did not gain popularity after Alice in Wonderland came out.

AURORA – from Sleeping Beauty (1959)

Filled with jealousy, the evil witch Maleficent curses Princess Aurora to die on her 16th birthday. Thanks to Aurora's guardian fairies, she only falls into a deep sleep that can be ended with a kiss from her true love, Prince Phillip. To prevent Phillip from rescuing Aurora, Maleficent kidnaps and imprisons him. The good fairies are the last hope to free Phillip so that he can awaken Aurora.

Aurora is a suprisingly uncommon name considering how nice it sounds, so that is kind of a struggle when it comes to analyzing this graph. There was a slight bump in the popularity of the name after the movie in 1959 and an overall general positive trend after the movie with the exception of 1969. I would say that the popularity of Aurora supports the hypothesis.

ARIEL – from The Little Mermaid (1989)

A rebellious 16-year-old mermaid named Ariel is fascinated with life on land. On one of her visits to the surface, which are forbidden by her controlling father, King Triton, she falls for a human prince. Determined to be with her new love, Ariel makes a dangerous deal with the sea witch Ursula to become human for three days to go see him, forcing her dad to have to make the ultimate sacrifice for his daughter.

There was a huge spike in baby girls named Ariel after the movie came out in 1989, met with a precipitous decline after the popularity of the movie died off. This is the first test of my hypothesis where I can confidently say that the movie was a factor in the rise of popularity in the baby girl’s name Ariel.

BELLE – from Beauty and the Beast (1991)

An arrogant young falls under a spell that turns him into the hideous Beast. The curse won’t be reversed until he learns to love and be loved in return. The village girl, Belle, enters the Beast's castle after he imprisons her father. With the help of his servants, Belle begins to draw the cold-hearted Beast out of his isolation.

After remaining pretty stagnant for the five years prior to the 1991 release of Beauty and the Beast, there was a sudden positive change in the number of girls named Belle after the movie’s release, confirming my hypothesis.

JASMINE - from Aladdin (1992)

When Aladdin frees a genie from a lamp, he finds his wishes granted. However, the evil spirit has other plans for Princess Jasmine, so Aladdin must save her and his love for her after she sees that he isn't quite who he appears to be.

Jasmine was on a sharp rise prior to the movie's release. After the movie came out, there was another increase in the popularity of the name before it started to die down. Each year the name gets less popular. The name could have been chosen because it was popular at the time or for another reason, but there is a spike in the popularity after the movie. For that reason, I'm going to say that the name Jasmine supports my hypothesis.

ESMERALDA – from The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996)

This animated Disney film follows disfigured Quasimodo, the bell-ringer of Notre Dame Cathedral, who spends his time locked away in a tower. With only gargoyles to keep him company, Quasimodo longs to be with other people. He has a chance encounter with the enchanting Gypsy, Esmeralda.

There was a huge spike in the name after the movie debuted in 1996, almost doubling the number of girls named Esmeralda in 1997 and then again in 1998. The name remained common until the data ended, meaning that this movie also supports my hypothesis.

Conclusion

For the majority of the names of Disney princesses, with the exception of Alice, the popularity of the names after the movie increased. Since this is what I predicted, my hypothesis was supported because it seems like parents are more likely to name their kids after seeing a Disney princess with that name.

Expanding the graphs to show all of the data, not just the 20-year span that I limited the data to, show the trends described in my findings remain true. The full data set includes the popularity of the name from 1880 to 2015.

Some variables that could potentially skew the results are whether or not there is a greater or less likely chance that names increase in popularity with second or third children instead of the first child. It’s also popular that the names Belle, Ariel and Esmeralda also were picked because they are better-sounding names than Alice.

The hypothesis would have to be confirmed by studying more than the seven most notable princess names and could even be expanded to all female Disney characters. But after studying these seven, I’m fairly confident that the movies affect the popularity of girls named after the female characters in the following years after the movie is released and that my hypothesis is correct.