To my surprise, I realized today that Hawking hasn’t made the SSA list. It will be an interesting name to trend watch…both to see if it debuts onto the list that will be released in [name_f]May[/name_f] and to see how much it rises in popularity on the list released in [name_f]May[/name_f] 2019 which will capture this year’s data. [name_m]RIP[/name_m] [name_m]Stephen[/name_m] Hawking!
I thought this too! I can definitely see it trending upwards to a modest degree, as [name_m]Bowie[/name_m], [name_m]Heath[/name_m]/[name_m]Ledger[/name_m], and Prince did following sad high-profile deaths.
[name_m]RIP[/name_m] indeed, what a great mind has been lost.
I was wondering about this today, too! I definitely see it rising in the coming months to a year but maybe as a middle name. I wasn’t the biggest Hawking fan, but the name does have a cool sound which I think people will also appreciate.
There may be a slight uptick in its use, especially given its trendy sound, but I doubt it’ll become super popular super quickly. Celebrity deaths can help bump up names that are already trending upwards (a la [name_u]Harper[/name_u]) but I think it’s rare for a name to get a huge bump from them.