By Joe Satran

　　Updated with names from Black Panther on March 5.

　　At the movie theater, we’re living in the Age of Marvel. It only took Black Panther three weeks to hit $500 million at the U.S. box office — faster than almost any other movie in history. Thor: Ragnarok, the previous entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), opened at the top of the box office with a $122 million U.S. debut, pushing the total of the series past the $13 billion mark. That’s almost as much as Harry Potter and Star Wars combined!

　　But what about on birth certificates and in pre-schools?  We know that plenty of parents are naming their babies after Harry Potter, Star Wars and Game of Thrones characters. Curious to see if the same was true of Marvel, we combed through the SSA most popular baby names data to find out how many babies had been given Marvel character names since the debut of the first MCU movie, Iron Man, in 2008.

　　A few tricky issues popped up right away. For starters, many Marvel characters, having been invented decades ago, have extremely bland first names. When a baby boy is named Kylo, you can be pretty sure Adam Driver‘s Star Wars character was a factor. It’s much harder to figure out whether any particular baby Steve was inspired by Captain America. Or how many parents avoided naming their daughter Natasha because they hated Black Widow.

　　Still, it’s clear that the MCU has had an effect on baby naming. Three examples in particular stand out. Loki is up 67% since 2008, while Pepper and Odin have both more than quadrupled since that year. You could also easily make a similar case for Falcon, Clint, Rhodes, Captain and Nebula.

　　Plus, we may only be in the early stages of this phenomenon. Since Marvel audiences tend to skew young, as they age into becoming parents, they might start calling up their love of the Avengers movies when they consider baby names. And new Marvel productions seem to be appearing almost every month. Since Thor: Ragnarok and Guardians of the Galaxy 2 both came out in 2017, their influence won’t show up until next year, when we won’t be surprised to see a few more Valkyries, Thors and even Gamoras pop up.

　　Here’s the full list of Marvel character names, ranked from most to least popular in 2016.

 Boys

　　Character: Luke Cake (Mike Coulter) from Luke Cage

　　Number of babies in 2016: 9930

　　Change since 2008: Up 6%

　　2. Everett

　　Character: Everett Ross (Martin Freeman) from Captain America: Civil War

　　Number of babies in 2016: 3495

　　Change since 2008: Up 335%

　　3. Peter

　　Characters: Peter Parker (Tom Holland) from Spider-Man: Homecoming, Peter “Star–Lord” Quill (Chris Pratt) from Guardians of the Galaxy

　　Number of babies in 2016: 1904

　　Change since 2008: Down 13%

　　4. Jasper

　　Character: Jasper Sitwell (Maximiliano Hernandez) from Thor

　　Number of babies in 2016: 1885

　　Change since 2008: Up 201%

　　5. Stephen

　　Character: Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) from Doctor Strange

　　Number of babies in 2016: 1367

　　Change since 2008: Down 35%

　　6. Erik

　　Character:Erik Killmonger (Michael B. Jordan) from Black Panther and Erik Selvig (Stellan Skarsgard) from Thor

　　Number of babies in 2016: 937

　　Change since 2008: Down 48%

　　7. Odin

　　Character: Odin (Anthony Hopkins) from Thor

　　Number of babies in 2016: 831

　　Change since 2008: Up 313%

　　8. Bruce

　　Character: Bruce Banner (Ed Norton/Mark Ruffalo) from The Incredible Hulk

　　Number of babies in 2016: 697

　　Change since 2008: Up 20%

　　9. Scott

　　Character: Scott Lane (Paul Rudd) from Ant-Man

　　Number of babies in 2016: 655

　　Change since 2008:Down 37%

　　10. Tony

　　Character: Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) from Iron Man

　　Number of babies in 2016: 560

　　Change since 2008: Down 37%

　　11. Sam

　　Character: Sam “Falcon” Wilson (Anthony Mackie) from Captain America: The Winter Soldier

　　Number of babies in 2016: 474

　　Change since 2008: Down 22%

　　12. Steve

　　Character: Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) from Captain America: The First Avenger

　　Number of babies in 2016: 205

　　Change since 2008: Down 51%

　　13. Nick

　　Character: Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) from Iron Man 2

　　Number of babies in 2016: 175

　　Change since 2008: Down 26%

　　14. Clint

　　Character: Clint “Hawkeye” Barton (Jeremy Renner) from Thor

　　Number of babies in 2016: 123

　　Change since 2008: Up 23%

　　15. Loki

　　Character: Loki (Tom Hiddleston) from Thor

　　Number of babies in 2016: 92

　　Change since 2008: Up 67%

　　16. Thor

　　Character: Thor (Chris Hemsworth) from Thor

　　Number of babies in 2016: 87

　　Change since 2008: Down 16%

　　17. Rhodes

　　Character: James “Rhodey” Rhodes (Terrence Howard/Don Cheadle) from Iron Man

　　Number of babies in 2016: 59

　　Change since 2008: Up 181%

　　18. Matt

　　Character: Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox) from Daredevil

　　Number of babies in 2016: 58

　　Chance since 2008: Down 29%

　　19. Pietro

　　Character: Pietro Maximoff (Aaron Taylor–Johnson) from Avengers: Age of Ultron

　　Number of babies in 2016: 37

　　Change since 2008: Up 6%

　　20. Captain

　　Character: Captain America, AKA Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) from Captain America

　　Number of babies in 2016: 31

　　Change since 2008: Up 182%

　　21. Rocket

　　Character: Rocket (Bradley Cooper) from Guardians of the Galaxy

　　Number of babies in 2016: 23

　　Change since 2008: Up 28%

　　22. Falcon

　　Character: Sam “Falcon” Wilson (Anthony Mackie) from Captain America: The Winter Soldier

　　Number of babies in 2016: 21

　　Change since 2008: Up 75%

　　23. Stark

　　Character: Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) from Iron Man

　　Number of babies in 2016: 18

　　Change since 2008: Not on list in 2008

　　24. Phil

　　Character: Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg) from Iron Man

　　Number of babies in 2016: 15

　　Change since 2008: Down 35%

　　25. Hawkeye

　　Character: Clint “Hawkeye” Barton (Jeremy Renner) from Thor

　　Number of babies in 2016: 5

　　Change since 2008: Not on list in 2008

　　Not on popularity list, because fewer than 5 babies: Bucky, Drax, Groot, Heimdall, Skurge, Strange, T’Challa, Vision, Yondu

Girls

　　Character: Claire Temple (Rosario Dawson) from Daredevil

　　Number of babies in 2016: 5190

　　Change since 2008: Up 30%

　　2. Maria

　　Character: Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders) from The Avengers

　　Number of babies in 2016: 2788

　　Change since 2008: Down 50%

　　2. Jessica

　　Character: Jessica Jones (Krysten Ritter) from Jessica Jones

　　Number of babies in 2016: 1375

　　Change since 2008: Down 71%

　　3. Hope

　　Character: Hope van Dyne (Evangeline Lily) from Ant-Man, Hope Shlottman (Erin Moriarty) from Jessica Jones

　　Number of babies in 2016: 1324

　　Change since 2008: Down 14%

　　4. Jane

　　Character: Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) from Thor

　　Number of babies in 2016: 1129

　　Change since 2008: Up 37%

　　5. Natasha

　　Character: Natasha “Black Widow” Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson) from The Avengers

　　Number of babies in 2016: 387

　　Change since 2008: Down 50%

　　6. Sharon

　　Character: Sharon Carter (Emily VanCamp) from Captain America: The Winter Soldier

　　Number of babies in 2016: 295

　　Change since 2008: Down 37%

　　7. Pepper

　　Character: Virginia “Pepper” Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) from Iron Man

　　Number of babies in 2016: 136

　　Change since 2008: Up 353%

　　8. May

　　Character: May Parker (Marissa Tomei) from Spider-Man: Homecoming

　　Number of babies in 2016: 131

　　Change since 2008: Up 40%

　　9. Valkyrie

　　Character: Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson) from Thor: Ragnarok

　　Number of babies in 2016: 48

　　Change since 2008: Up 337%

　　10. Wanda

　　Character: Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olson) from Avengers: Age of Ultron

　　Number of Babies in 2016: 30

　　Change since 2008: Down 21%

　　11 (tie). Elektra

　　Character: Elektra (Elodie Yung) from Daredevil

　　Number of Babies in 2016: 21

　　Change since 2008: Down 57%

　　11 (tie). Nakia

　　Character: Nakia (Lupita Nyongo) from Black Panther

　　Number of Babies in 2016: 21

　　Change since 2008: Down 74%

　　12. Peggy

　　Character: Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell) from Captain America: The First Avenger

　　Number of babies in 2016: 19

　　Change since 2008: Down 30%

　　13. Nebula

　　Character: Nebula (Karen Gillan) from Guardians of the Galaxy

　　Number of babies in 2016: 8

　　Change since 2008: Not on list in 2008

　　14. Topaz

　　Character: Topaz (Rachel House) from Thor: Ragnarok

　　Number of babies in 2016: 6

　　Change since 2008: Not on list in 2008

　　Not on popularity list, because fewer than 5 babies: Gamora, Hela, Frigga, Mantis, Okoye, Shuri