Babies named Maverick (US)Chinese billionaires (Forbes)
Between 2010 and 2022, American parents chose the name Maverick for more of their sons each year, and Forbes counted more Chinese billionaires each year, and the two lines have risen together (r = 0.959) with the disciplined cheer of two trends that share a screenplay somewhere. One is Tom Cruise's fault. The other is Deng Xiaoping's. The causes have not met, but the effects rhyme.
Babies named Maverick climbed from about 400 per year in 2010 to over 5,000 per year after Top Gun: Maverick's 2022 release, making it one of the fastest-climbing boys' names on the Social Security rolls; Forbes-counted Chinese billionaires grew from 64 in 2010 to over 470 in 2022 (peaking at 620 before Xi's anti-wealth turn), reflecting the maturation of the WeChat/Alibaba/Tencent generation of entrepreneurs. Both are demographic consequences of long 2010s macro trends — American pop-culture nostalgia, Chinese liquidity and tech success — and both, amusingly, peaked in the same year.
A son is named after a fighter pilot. A fortune is compounded in Shenzhen. The decade, accommodating, held both.
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