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Pet owners showed some serious love to Kobe Bryant in 2020 — with Mamba-inspired pet names up BIG over the past year, new data shows.
The famous dog-walking site Rover.com has crunched the numbers for its annual list of the most popular pet names … which shows fans are honoring the NBA legend by passing on his name (and nickname) to their beloved furry family members.
The name “Mamba” is up 111% from 2019 — the biggest spike.
“Black Mamba” is up 58% and “Kobe” is up 16%.
The site says the name “Gianna” is also up 20% from 2019, which Rover suspects is also connected to fans paying tribute to Bryant’s daughter, Gigi.
Other notable increases … Rover says the name LeBron is up among dog owners. Michael Jordan is up big with cats.
Neymar is one of the top trending athlete-inspired dog names of 2020 — with a 58% increase.
They also note Tom Brady is seeing a surge in pet name popularity … probably from people in Tampa?!
Obviously, the rise in Kobe-inspired names comes from people looking to honor Bryant following his death back in January.
As we previously reported, BabyCenter is also seeing a surge in people naming their human children after Kobe and Gianna as well.
The name Kobe vaulted from #595 on the list in 2019 to #216 in 2020 — “far and away the biggest riser on the list for boys in 2020.”
As for Gianna, her name among newborns rose from #76 to #24 (seriously, #24).
RIP