"Cullen" increasingly popular baby name

Suzanne sent me this article from the NY Times. Hilarious! [Especially funny because SM made up a name for Bella & Edward's daughter: Renesmee. Wonder when that will hit the list.]

. . . for people who track babynames, it was the year of the vampire. The Social Security Administration released its annual rundown of the most popular names for newborns on Friday, and flying up the list was an ancient name with modern fame: Cullen, the surname of one handsomebloodsucker, Edward, in the frighteningly popular vampire films“Twilight,” based on the best-selling novels by Stephenie Meyer.

Cullen materialized at 485, leaping almost 300 spots from 2008 for the biggest increase of any boy’s name; it wedged firmly between Braiden and Kason.

. . . Cullen was the choice of an eerily repetitive 555 couples. They included Brad Lafferty and Michelle Mikkelsen, who live in the Bronx. Ms. Mikkelsen said she read the last book in Ms. Meyer’s series, Breaking Dawn — which includes the birth of a half-vampire, half-human child — while pregnant. “I like old names,” said Ms. Mikkelsen. “And most of those characters in there are vampires. So they are really, really old names.”