Mike Marsland/WireImage.comAs Knox and Vivienne may or may not know, their famous parents are trendsetters. In the world of baby names.
Among girls, Shiloh, the name given to the daughter born to Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt in 2006, cracked the top 1,000 most popular baby names last year for the first time, U.S. Social Security online records show.
Among boys, Maddox, the name bestowed upon the son adopted by Jolie in 2002 (and by Pitt in 2006), debuted in the top 1,000 in 2003—likewise, one year after making Hollywood headlines.
So will the names of the twins born last night to the couple, boy Knox Leon and girl Vivienne Marcheline, be similarly emulated?
"Celebrities have a huge influence on baby-naming—as long as it's not too wacky," says baby-name expert Jennifer Moss, founder of BabyNames.com.
Knox is unusual, although not unheard of, à la Moxie CrimeFighter (the name Penn Jillette gave to his daughter)—it was, in fact, the middle name of Pitt's maternal grandfather, Hal Knox Hillhouse.
Vivienne is more well known. In the early 20th century, it was regularly among the 1,000 most popular girl names. Its most recent year on the chart, however, was 1930.
Sometimes all an out-of-favor classic like Vivienne needs is the boost of a celebrity endorsement. Consider the case of Isabella.
A turn-of-the-20th-century standby that ranked in the 300s and 400s, Isabella failed to make the top 1,000 for 40 years, from 1949 to 1989. It staged a comeback in the early 1990s, and stood at 319th in 1993—the same year Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman selected the name for their eldest child.
A year later, Isabella cleared the top 250, and didn't look back. Last year, it was No. 2—an ascendancy Moss sees as directly related to Cruise and Kidman.
But not all that celebrities touch is gold.
Suri, the name given to Cruise's first child with Katie Holmes in 2006, hasn't inspired an Isabella-esque surge. The name wasn't in the top 1,000 before, and it's not in there now—a non-trend, if you will, that Moss also finds telling.
Cruise, she says, "[is] falling out with the general public…Also, people think there's a Scientology [connection]."
Among the celebrity baby name class of 2006, for whom the most recent data applies, no name has come farther than Shiloh, which went from unchartered territory to 804th in 2007.
Others: Sadie (Adam Sandler), which rose from 157th in 2006 to 106th last year; Moses (Gwyneth Paltrow-Chris Martin), which sunk from 446th in 2006 to 464th last year; and Dannielynn (Anna Nicole Smith-Larry Birkhead), which remains in the outer reaches of baby-name land, along with Suri.
Moss expects Shiloh, with its Biblical roots to go along with the Jolie-Pitt endorsement, to stick around. "I think it'll definitely go higher," she says.
Not all the Jolie and Pitt picks, however, are climbing. Zahara, the name of the couple's eldest daughter, has yet to make a top 1,000 appearance. Pax hasn't, either, although that's understandable—the stars' adoption of the boy made the news just last year.
The early reviews for Knox and Vivienne are good. Wrote a poster (or three) on Celebrity Babies Blog today: "Love the names!"
Moss sees Vivienne and the girl's middle name, Marcheline, after Jolie's late mother, as having real potential.
"I think [they'll] probably bring back more French-sounding names," Moss says. "Vivienne and Marcheline are really beautiful names, and I think they'll probably rise in popularity."
As for Knox? "He'll probably get 'School of Hard Knox,' " Moss says. "But it's a respectable name."