German

I live in Los Angeles; German isn't popular really.

It could be this "rise" in popularity is local to where you live, and also since you're now paying more attention to German, you'll start noticing it more and more even though the actual amount out there hasn't changed all that much.

Really and truly, I don't find German to be all that common, certainly no more popular or common that it was before.

Try driving, for example, a Mazda Miata. Once you do, you'll notice "how many of them there seem to be on the roads". It's a self-fulfilling attention focus thing.