What happens when your baby’s namesake goes from feminist powerhouse to mass murderer?
On Sunday’s penultimate episode of “Game of Thrones,” the platinum-locked dragon queen Daenerys “Khaleesi” Targaryen (played by Emilia Clarke), long touted as the “Breaker of Chains” for freeing slaves and fighting for common folk, seemed to resemble a maniac rather than a monarch. Atop her fire-breathing beast, she scorched the city-dwellers of King’s Landing, the capital that houses the up-for-grabs Iron Throne — even after they’d surrendered.
Daenerys’ dramatic shift was a shock to superfans everywhere. Many have been religiously glued to every episode for nine years, but for some, the stakes have never been higher: Since 2011, some 3,562 babies were named Khaleesi or Daenerys, according to the Social Security Administration. Five hundred and sixty little Khaleesis came into the world in 2018 alone.
So do “Throne”-head parents regret naming their bundles of joy after someone who’s inflicted so much (albeit fictional) pain? Nah.
On Twitter, one fan of the show said her pal, whose daughter is named Khaleesi, had resorted to joking that “her baby would burn cities to the ground if she didn’t get her way.”
And Suzy Friot, 28, of Ogdensburg, NY, who welcomed Khaleesi Jade Vanleuven in March 2018, says she and her fiancé Jesse Vanleuven had no doubts about their name choice.
“From the time her title Khaleesi was introduced, both my fiancé and I agreed that we loved the name. We loved how it rolled off the tongue,” Friot, a nursing home nutrition assistant tells The Post via text.
“As the show progressed, we love that her character overcame many obstacles and earned respect and love as a queen, instead of being a tyrant. On top of it all, she was a beautiful, intelligent woman. She is a woman who was going to change the world.”
Friot says that despite Daenerys’ murderous turn on Sunday night, “it was a good episode.” And she doesn’t fault Dany’s lust for revenge.
“I do still love her, and understand she feels like she has been scorned by the people she trusts,” Friot says, referring to her belief that she’d been betrayed by both her lover (and nephew), Jon Snow, and her advisers.
Little Khaleesi Jade is just 14 months old, but when the time comes to explain the origin of her unusual name, Friot says the on-screen queen’s downward spiral won’t play a part: “I just sum up her character as a strong woman who had to learn to adapt to a world that underestimated her; a woman who took the role she was given and flourished into a queen worthy of a throne.”
Still, Friot says that looking back, there’s another character who might’ve been more fit for daughter-dom: “I almost wish I had named her Arya,” she joked.
