The Popularity Of The Name 'Arwen' Before And After The 'Lord Of The Rings' Movies, Visualized

Can the popularity of a book series or a movie franchise lead to an upswing in the popularity of a name? That seems to be the case at least when it comes to the popularity of "Arwen," the name of one of the most important female characters in the "Lord of the Rings" books and movie franchise. 

Using data from the Social Security Administration, Reddit user u/gorillaBBQ made a graph that charts the popularity of "Arwen" in the US over the past half-century-plus along with the release dates of the books and the movies:

While the "Lord of the Rings" books were published between 1954 to 1955, the name "Arwen" didn't really catch on until the 1970s, which makes sense considering that J.R.R. Tolkien's fantasy series gained more traction during the countercultural era of the '60s and the '70s.

It was the release of Peter Jackson's "The Lord of the Rings" movies, starting with 2001's "The Fellowship of the Ring," however, that really propelled the name to greater popularity. And even though Arwen doesn't appear in the "Hobbit" movies, the prequel trilogy to the "Lord of the Rings" movies that was released a decade later, you can see from the graph that there was still a small bump in the number of babies named Arwen during that period, perhaps due to nostalgia for the fantasy series.

[Via Reddit]