Jose Maria Rodriguez |
Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (EFE).- In the battle of titans that these weeks lead on televisions around the world Amazon and HBO with “The rings of power” and “The house of the dragon”, half a thousand Spaniards know “his past”: these are the 466 women who bear the names of Daenerys (or Khaleesi) and Galadriel.
That music, movies, television and, in general, pop culture leave their mark on family books is nothing new; ask the thousands of Spanish women who are called Penélope not because of family tradition, but because of a Serrat song from 1969.
When the protagonists of these works of art or entertainment have common names (in Spanish or in another language), it is difficult to know what inspires someone to call their offspring thus, if they are moved by their attachment to the reference in question, family inertia or pure and simple whim… just because.
The thing changes if the names come from the particular universes created by monsters of mass culture such as JRR Tolkien, George Lucas or George RR Martin during the birth of sagas such as “The Lord of the Rings” (1954), ” Star Wars” (1977) or “Song of Ice and Snow” (1996, better known as “Game of Thrones”).
There are names with purely cinematic roots, like Leia, Anakin or Neo, but with others like Galadriel, Arwen, Daenerys or Ayra, it’s also worth asking what weighed the most when signing up. a boy or a girl with this name, the book or the series? Few doubts, because the National Institute of Statistics collects not only how many Spaniards have this name and where they were born, but also their average age. And this data suggests that screens are winning by a landslide. Some examples:
Lily
She is the first great cinema heroine for the so-called X generation and some of her parents, the “baby boomers”. As the twin of Luke Skywalker, they are called 1,062 Spaniards. It’s been nearly half a century since the character burst onto screens with ‘Star Wars’ (1977), but Spain’s Leias are only 6.5 years old on average, suggesting they don’t have never lacked a loyal following among Starwars fans, generation after generation. generation. Barcelona, Tarragona, Girona, the Balearic Islands, Segovia, Las Palmas or Santa Cruz de Tenerife are the provinces where the most Leias are found.
anakin
There are 29 Spaniards named after the boy Obi-Wan Kenobi taught, the Force-gifted who ended up being drawn to the dark side. They average 8.8 years old, so their parents were probably inspired by the boy in “The Phantom Menace” (1999) or the young Padawan in “Attack of the Clones” (2002), unaware (or perhaps aware ) that the child would end up being the supervillain Darth Vader, the one with the phrase “I am your father”.
Daenerys or Khaleesi
The Mother of Dragons who subjects almost all candidates to the Iron Throne to blood and fire gives her name in Spain to 189 citizens, with an average age of 3.8 years, to which are added 38 others who carry their identity on their DNI. “Dothraki,” Khaleesi, with an average age of 3.5. Did the couples who named their daughters know what kind of genocide she would become by the end of the series? Maybe now many think about it before putting their daughter Rhaenyra in. The Daenerys of Spain mainly reside in Las Palmas, Tarragona, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Toledo and Madrid and homeland Khaleesis, in Barcelona and Madrid.
arya
The youngest of the Starks narrowly wins, since she is called 1,168 Spaniards, with an average age of three years, which suggests that her parents thought, more than in Martin’s books, of the character from HBO’s eight-season series, Sansa’s “odd” sister who defies feminine clichés and eventually survives it all, becoming a skilled swordswoman. The Aryas of Spain are spread throughout the country: Lleida, Barcelona, Castellón, La Rioja, Santa Cruz de Tenerife… We will finish before saying that there are only eleven provinces (out of 50) where no one wears the name of the heroine of Winterfell resides
Arwen
177 The Spaniards are named after the daughter of Elrond, the brave elf of Rivendell whom Aragorn fell in love with when he was still the captain of the Northern Rangers, not the future king of Middle-earth. They are on average 8.9 years old, which reveals that these almost 200 couples were more influenced by Peter Jackson, the creator of the film trilogy “The Lord of the Rings” (2001-2003), than by John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, the true father of the creature… and of all its universe.
Galadriel
Like the immortal elf that runs through Tolkien’s major works, today they are called 58 Spaniards. In recent weeks, unless you have already read “The Silmarillion”, most of you are discovering the young Galadriel, the tormented warrior who fights tirelessly against the armies of orcs. The Spaniards Galadriel are 15.4 years old on average, which again refers to the Jackson films, and were born in Zaragoza, Malaga, Valencia, Barcelona and Madrid.
Neo
Neo has always been the cult prefix for “new” in several languages. Now, as a name, Neo is quite a neologism for the Spanish speaker. He became popular with the Wachowski sisters’ “Matrix” trilogy (1999-2003). Today 466 Spaniards carry the nom de guerre of Thomas A. Anderson since he took the red pill and became the leader of the rebellion (or the king of “bullet time”, for visual effects lovers) . They are on average 8.3 years old and were born, above all, in Girona, the Balearic Islands, Lleida, Huesca, Alicante, León and Santa Cruz de Tenerife.
Zelda
Video games also have their great sagas, such as Nintendo’s “The Legend of Zelda”, launched in 1986, which already has 17 episodes. Its protagonist, Princess Zelda, has fanatical followers all over the world. Twenty of them have registered a girl with that name in Spain, all in the civil registers of Barcelona. Spanish Zeldas are on average 15.8 years old.
Moana
How many girls have grown up playing Elsa and Anna, the protagonists of “Frozen”? But their names are so common that it is difficult to find them in the civil register, even with the help of the INE. Now, if 45 Spaniards are called Moana, it can only be because of the brave young Polynesian who ventures across the Pacific in another recent Disney hit (2016). Spanish Moanas are all registered in the civil registers of Santa Cruz de Tenerife and Barcelona and are on average 2.3 years old. Did her parents know that they call her Moana in Spain due to trademark rights issues and that in the rest of the world their daughter is “named” Moana?
Web editor: Nuria Santesteban