There is a small but not insignificant trend of naming children after Star Wars characters. According to babycenter.com, the name Leia "started appearing in the top 1,000 girls' names in the United States in 1978, the year after Star Wars: A New Hope came out – and again in 1980, when The Empire Strikes Back was released." That has a pretty significant impact on culture, but it's also a nice name that fits in with other American names fairly well. Luke is obviously a popular name otherwise, but it continues to top the baby name charts, and I'm sure Star Wars has at least something to do with that. And surprisingly, Kylo ranks number 786 among popular baby names in the US, and had a spike in popularity in 2016. Now that's setting your baby up for an… interesting life.
Names are just one of the ways Star Wars continues to shape our world, and memes are another. Here are some of the best ones from the week.