Babies named Khaleesi

Between 2011 and 2018, antidepressant use among American adults and the number of babies named Khaleesi rose together at a correlation of 0.97, which is either a damning commentary on Game of Thrones fandom or a hopeful one. Both trends peaked in the same cultural moment and both reflect, in their own way, a society reaching for something better than the present reality — one through pharmacology, one through dragons. Neither approach has been conclusively proven to work.

Antidepressant use among US adults has risen steadily for decades, growing throughout the 2010s as prescribing became more normalized, access improved, and awareness of mental health increased. Babies named Khaleesi tracked almost perfectly with Game of Thrones' cultural peak, growing from near-zero in 2011 to several hundred per year by 2014-2018 before declining as the show's reputation suffered. The correlation captures a brief window where both trends were simultaneously ascending, with no causal link beyond shared timing.

Cultural phenomena leave traces in the strangest places — baby name registries, prescription records, and spurious correlations websites. That a fictional queen and a clinical trend aligned for eight years is just the data's way of marking the era.