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Kobe hugely popular - as a name

It was not always easy being Kobe. Kobe confirmed this himself. Some crowd would start chanting his name and he'd wonder - who were they really chanting for?

Los Angeles Lakers guard Kobe Bryant (24) after committing an offensive foul against the Sacramento Kings during the second quarter at Sleep Train Arena. (Kelley L Cox/USA TODAY Sports)
Los Angeles Lakers guard Kobe Bryant (24) after committing an offensive foul against the Sacramento Kings during the second quarter at Sleep Train Arena. (Kelley L Cox/USA TODAY Sports)Read more

It was not always easy being Kobe. Kobe confirmed this himself. Some crowd would start chanting his name and he'd wonder - who were they really chanting for?

"You better have some type of game," Kobe Gantz said. "You don't want to get embarrassed."

Finishing his junior year at Lancaster's McCaskey High School, Gantz - a legit ballplayer, getting Division I interest - is among the older guys in a specific cohort, named for Kobe Bryant.

"My dad named me after Kobe Bryant, but my mom just liked the name, so I guess she went along with it," Gantz said. "My dad was a fan of basketball."

He was maybe 6 or 7 years old, Gantz said, just becoming aware of the sport when he became aware of this other Kobe: "I kind of put two-and-two together." A few years later, his dad made a poster, putting both Kobes on it. It hung in his bedroom.

Many of the oldest Kobes are finishing high school right now, and there are a lot of them. There also are 4-year-olds like Kobe Towns, the son of a '90s Central League star.

According to data compiled by the Social Security Administration, 14,148 males were born in the United States with the name Kobe from 1997 to 2014. The year before, when Kobe took Brandy to the Lower Merion High prom, then graduated and moved on to the Los Angeles Lakers, there were 87 Kobes born in the United States.

The year before that, in '95, when he was still making his name at Lower Merion, there were nine Kobes born. By 2001, the number grew to 1,552. That year, Kobe was the 222d most popular male name for babies in the U.S. Kobe himself may have been named for a type of Japanese Kobe beef. But most of these later Kobes were named for him.

"It's a cool sounding name," said Collins Gantz, Kobe's father. "I saw [Kobe Bryant] play at Lower Merion, that made it easier. Me being a basketball junkie, it was only right I named him after Kobe. My first son was named after me. My second son was named after what I loved doing the most."

Not all 14,148 Kobes turned out to be basketball players, of course. There is a top high school wrestler named Kobe in California, a baseball player named Kobe in Utah. There also are Kobies and Kobys.

Meanwhile, Kobe has gone worldwide. Kobe Bryant is most popular in Asia, has been for years. A band in Thailand simply goes by Kobe. Crowds at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing engulfed Bryant everywhere he went. Maybe the top-rated Kobe namesake, Kobe Paras, headed to play basketball at UCLA next year, was born in the Philippines, the son of a professional player himself.

Kobe Bryant didn't respond to an interview request. But he surely knows about the phenomenon. The number of Kobe namings drastically dropped from 2003 to 2004, from 1,212 to 625, after Kobe was accused of sexual assault by a hotel employee in 2003. (The case was later dropped.) The name never got back up to the same popularity again but also never dropped off the map. In 2014, there were 512 American Kobes born.

Not all Kobes even know they are named for that Kobe.

"No, I'm not named after Kobe Bryant," said Kobe Goudeau, who played high school basketball in Shawnee Heights, Kan.

He was talking on the phone. In the background, his mother told him, actually, he was.

Carole Williams, Kobe's mom, who lived in North Philadelphia for a time herself when she was younger - her father was from the city - related how Kobe's grandmother was talking through names, throwing out Cody as a possibility.

"My daughter just said, "What about Kobe - Kobe Bryant?"

Kobe Goudeau is good with his name. "I just always liked LeBron best," Goudeau said. "To be honest, I respect Kobe. I just don't like the Lakers."

His grandmother had moved to Los Angeles and would send him Lakers/Kobe gear. "He would never wear it," his mother said. "My daughter would wear it."

Kevin Towns, a dominant player at Strath Haven High, a 1992 graduate who just missed playing ball against Kobe Bryant in the Central League, named his second son Kobe. Bouncing around names with his wife, he brought up Kobe. They liked the sound of it. Kobe Towns is 4 years old now.

Towns said he would have enjoyed facing Kobe. It never happened, even in the summer.

"I would have loved to give my all against him," Towns said. "Especially when he was a freshman - maybe not when he was a senior."

Collins Gantz said they once wrote trying to get Kobe into Kobe's summer camp but never heard back. (Suggestion for Bryant: You should have a camp session featuring nothing but Kobes.)

Like the other Kobe, Gantz respects Bryant, but he isn't his favorite. Time marches on. New heroes emerge. Gantz took that poster down. It's in a closet.

"I honestly am a fan of Kobe, but right now he is at the end of the game," Kobe Gantz said. "I'm more of a fan of Kyrie Irving."

His own middle name also has a familiar basketball ring. No coincidence?

"I was an Allen Iverson fan, too," Kobe's father confirmed.

@jensenoffcampus