Babies named Khaleesi

Between 2011 and 2018, American parents named more daughters Khaleesi and American pediatric ERs saw more trampoline injuries, and the two curves have risen together (r = 0.957) in a combination that feels like a small dark comedy about the 2010s suburban household. Game of Thrones, you will recall, contained fire, a certain amount of falling, and several small children. The trampoline, unrelated, did its own work.

Babies named Khaleesi grew from zero pre-2011 to over 500 per year by 2018, peaking right as Game of Thrones was at cultural saturation before the name cooled after Season 8 famously disappointed everyone; trampoline-related ER visits grew from about 91,000 per year in 2011 to over 111,000 by 2018, as backyard trampolines became a middle-class suburban default and as trampoline parks expanded into nearly every US metro. Both are expressions of the same suburban millennial-parent demographic: pop-culture-enthusiastic, comfortable with modest risk, and willing to buy both a themed baby book and a $400 bounce surface.

A daughter is named. A child is cleared from the ER. The decade moved on before both decisions could be thoroughly reconsidered.