'My Son's A Fruit'

Parents Are Giving Kids Strange Names

by Buck Wolf

(snipped for Matrix)

My Boy Morpheus — The Matrix of Naming

In another case of life imitating art, five boys were named Morpheus, apparently after the hero of the sci-fi blockbuster The Matrix, portrayed by Laurence Fishburne. "I don't think there's a trace of that name existing before the film," Evans says (except for the Greek God of Dreams). "But now it's on the map."

The lead female character, Trinity, is faring even better. Between 1999 and 2000, the number of Trinitys tripled to 4,553, making it one of the fastest-growing girls' names.

Neo, the name of Keanu Reeves' character, scored only 113 names. "It's really not fair to compare," Evans says. "The movie obviously had an impact on naming. Trinity just started out as a real name, whereas Morpheus and Neo didn't really exist."

Reeves is so popular that he actually caused a naming controversy in Austria, where parents aren't allowed to invent names. Instead, they must prove that the name they give their child once belonged to another person.

When one Austrian couple wanted to name their son after the actor, officials objected, thinking Keanu was just a stage name. But, after doing some research, they discovered the name relates to the actor's Hawaiian ancestry.