US GDP per capita

From 2005 to 2022, the number of American babies named Luna rose with US GDP per capita at a correlation of 0.97, suggesting that prosperity and celestial baby names are deeply intertwined. As Americans got richer, they named more daughters after the moon — a finding that says less about economics and more about the particular aesthetic preferences of a specific income bracket at a specific cultural moment. The moon has not been contacted for comment, but it seems pleased.

Luna rose from a rare name to a top-10 US baby name between 2005 and 2022, driven by cultural factors including the Harry Potter character, a broader trend toward nature-inspired and mythological names, and its popularity among Hispanic-American communities. US GDP per capita grew from roughly $44,000 in 2005 to nearly $76,000 by 2022 in nominal terms. Both trends are upward over the same period, and while higher-income parents do drive naming trends through cultural influence, the direct relationship is mediated by dozens of social factors rather than any simple economic mechanism.

Names are fossils of the cultural moment in which children are born, and GDP is the economic weather of the same moment. They rise together not because one causes the other, but because they are both measures of the same era.