How popular are the top 100 names?

Very true what you say about different cultures re masc and fem.

DS has a name that I think sounds quite feminine, has 4 syllables etc, but DH's grandad (French) told us he loved it because of how masculine and strong it sounded :o

Valium - I think I would agree with the -ley/my names ending up as feminine only. DSIL has a niece called Presley, I assumed for ages she was talking about a nephew. DSIL thinks it's a very girly sounding name, so I think she'd say that about all -ley names.

ps, do you think that in a few decades names ending in ly will be automatically perceived in America to be only Feminine? Stanley and Finlay are used for girls. I remember reading when naming one of my dc, an American psychologist and name-obsessive (ck evans) 'warning' that any boys name ending in ley given to a baby would be considered a girls name by the end of his life.

What do you think of that?

That's really interesting honeymoonbaby! I know a toddler called Jeff.

I like it.

have you read the babynamewizard honeybabymoon/? it had a lot about the sounds of names. How people of the one generation all independently 'invent' such similar names. Why our best friend since we were 7 'steals' our favourite name (eg, similar values, conscious of the same zeitgeists etc). It was a really American perspective but still very interesting. Haven't go it any more unfortunately.

um my prediction of Freya and Isla going up has just increased as one of the other threads (Help! Stuck for a name!) is talking about exactly those two names so check it out!

Freya is slightly above medium fem and Isla a bit higher than that I would say.
They are quite popular at the moment. They are in the 20-30 range but I would imagine they would go up.
All the ones I like are popular too. We are just products of our time!

Freya and Isla please! I imagine they're quite feminine but will leave it to the expert - Honey.

Im so pleased that you are finding this interesting! There were hardly any studies on first names phoenetics so it was an unusual choice even within linguistics. The more common things to names to study by far are place names and surnames.

I cannot find my dissertation as it must be in storage somewhere so here are a few more bits...

Classics
medoitmama - If by classics you mean names that have been in the top 100 (england and wales) for the last 50 or so years Im not sure the list is technically right. There are only 5 or so girls names in that list (around 22 boys names).
Two of the girls names are Hannah and Maria from memory. They are not the ones you would expect. Catherine possibly. Rebecca unlikely. Im almost sure Lucy and Molly would not be.
The boys classics are much more predictable.

Feminine/Masculine
There are quite a few masculine and feminine phoenetic traits. I wont go into them all in detail but its to do with the sounds and length (eg more syllables=more feminine). I had a scoring system.
More examples of masculine girls names are:
Anne/Ann, Irene, Maud.
More examples of feminine boys names:
Oliver, Jamie, Anthony,Joshua,Timothy.

If you have a name in mind I can let you know if it is at either end of the spectrum. What you have to remember is that it is fashion dependant (see below).

An example and another topic...
Geoff vs Jeffery/Joffery/Geoffery
Caveat - I only studied the phoenetics of the names not the spellings so Jeffery and Geoffery are the same to me if that makes sense. Depends on how you pronounce Joffery.

Geoff and Jeffery are very different names. As are John and Jonathan. Dan and Daniel etc.
Geoff is currently not popular yet nappyadict likes Jeffery. Jeffery is a trendy name as it has feminine traits. (see above).

Fashion
Feminine traits are much more fashionable and socially popular at the moment than male ones in the first names of both sexes AT THE MOMENT. This is why you get more Jonathans insisting on being called Jonathan and why Jeffery is liked in this group. Also for babies there is a preference for cute (often feminine) versions.
Oliver is the most popular boys name. Phoenetically it has no masculine traits at all and has many feminine traits. If someone was looking at English language and looked at the patterns of the names they would most definitely conclude that Oliver is a girls name. It would rate higher than Sarah, Catherine, Laura, Faith, Hope etc.

More caveats
This is only applicable for England and Wales. Each culture has different opinions on what is masculine and feminine.

Lucy, Rebecca, Catherine and Molly are all real classics which have lasted the test of time. Not sure about boys names. My dd insists that there's a Tracey in year 4 which I find bizarre. She is only 4 and I know there's a Casey in year 4 so wonder if she's just got muddled.

honey could you give me a bit more info on femanine, masculine names please, eg a few more examples of each?

Thanks so much Honey. I found that facinating!

I'm going to push for Joffrey for number 2 (if and when) :o

But in principle I agree. I remember reading "The worst witch" as a child with Mildred, Enid, Maud and Ethel, I thought they were awful names and still giggle a little inside when they crop up in threads!

honeybabymoon I'm very jealous btw. I went heavily into sociolinguistics the last couple of years of my degree and dreamt of doing a thesis on names; alas, it wasn't relevant to my degree, so would have had to have been an MPhil or PhD project, and I didn't think I could justify the time or money for my own weird obsession!

Joffrey is quite cool - if I met a Joffrey it'd make my day :)

If I met a Geoff and his mum and dad "just quite liked it" or named him for someone I'd think fair play!

I tried to persuade DH to call DS Jeffrey or Joffrey. I made no claims re Chaucer, I just quite like it, especially Joffrey (should say, DH is French, and Joffrey sounds a lot better in a French accent). I agree that no baby looks like a Geoff though!

honeybabymoon your top list covers my mum, aunts, and mums of my friends perfectly! And you're right, I don't think of them as cool or nice names, they're the names of people who told us off.... boring!

I think those "sensible" girl's names like Anne, Jane, Claire etc are about to come back with a vengeance. A reaction against the trends of the last few years to be quite frilly/old lady/ultra feminine sounding, eg, Olivia, Grace, Isabella, flower names. Wouldn't be surprised if shouting Judith or Susan at nursery gets a few heads turning in 10 years or so.

I do hope that Geoff doesn't come back in but I would never have thought that Esme, Edith or Eva would return and they have...also there's bound to be some try-hards who name their child Geoffrey and say "oh it's after Chaucer". Don't get me wrong, I like Chaucer, but no baby has ever looked like a Geoff!

Glad it worked in practice cat!
I think the theory is that mothers and fathers think of their parents names and that generation as uncool.
Much is given to sounding like an old lady but we frequently give names from our grandparents and older (these are the trendy old names). What we really dont give is the people we grew up with as middle aged! So the names that our children will never choose are our names with a few classics exceptions.

So for anyone who really doesnt want anyone else in the playground to have the same name you have a list! Or just think of the names of your parents generation Susan, Geoff, that type of stuff. Yep sounds old to me!

Names from the top 100 I do not know / recognise from my DDs School / preschool / extra curricular activities and friends are:

24. Summer
25. Eva
26. Brooke
27. Elizabeth
28. Layla
29. Sienna
30. Sophia / Sofia
31. Niamh
32. Sarah
33. Florence
34. Julia
35. Evelyn
36. Alexandra
37. Nicole
38. Alisha
39. Francesca
40. Mya

Boys:
10. Daniel
13. Ethan
16. Mohammed (and all variations of)
18. Jacob
20. Archie
26. Jayden
27. Jake
28. Callum
29. Riley
30. Ryan
31. Tyler
34. Adam
35. Logan
45. Mason
46. Connor
47. Owen
48. Nathan
74. Kyle
76. Reece
77. Hayden
78. Aidan
80. Joel
81. Bailey
82. Brandon
85. Ellis
89. Taylor
90. Bradley
91. Robert
93. Arthur
94. Christopher
97. Morgan
98. Stanley
100. Austin

Knew a lot of more of the girls names, not sure whether that is because I have 2 DDs and therefore come into more contact with little girls (at ballet, gym etc...) or whether it is because the boys tend to have the same names (lots of Olivers, Matthews, Finleys etc). A final reason could be that a lot of parents around here seem to have normal names for their DDs, but shall we say more interesting names for boys. So whilst I've never met a little Kyle or a Riley, I do a Ptolemy, a Josca and so on...

In case this is helpful I remember thinking that although names are cyclical they are generally quite long cycles.

So if you wanted to call your child a name which no one else has you look about 50 years back (ie the parents of the mothers giving birth). Have a look at the top 20 from 1954 and I dont think you would get many responses in a playground to these:

SUSAN
LINDA
CHRISTINE
MARGARET
JANET
PATRICIA
CAROL
ELIZABETH
MARY
ANNE
ANN
JANE
JACQUELINE
BARBARA
SANDRA
GILLIAN
PAULINE
ELAINE
LESLEY
ANGELA

However look to the mothers grandparents or a bit further (approx 100 years) generation and you will find some cyclical boomerangs eg 1904:

MARY
FLORENCE
DORIS
EDITH
DOROTHY
ANNIE
MARGARET
ALICE
ELIZABETH
ELSIE
GLADYS
WINIFRED
ETHEL
HILDA
LILIAN
IVY
VIOLET
KATHLEEN
ELLEN
LILY

Look at the list of 100 and there are quite a few in the nurseries from 1900-1930s but not many 1940s-1970s.

I did warn you I would get geeky but I hope that's interesting to someone! You can certainly work out names that no one else will have in your childs class and also spot a few potential popular ones...

One trend I noticed was to feminise the old names a bit eg Olive was really popular 1900-1930s but is quite masculine. Olivia is the feminine version (other than Oliver!).

(source ONS)

linguistics. A cross between languages and maths.
Yes hard to believe that I managed to find a degree which accommodated my obsession. Weirder still that I actually did all Maths and Science A levels!

I know you will probably think Im mad but my dissertation (8 years ago) was on the top 100 first names and how they had changed over the last 50 years. I shall try and dig it out and see if there any interesting nuggets.

Focus was on the way the name sounded and masculine versus feminine names (eg If you look at the sound of Oliver it is a classic girls name!) Very common now that all names are getting more feminine. Not so common in the 50s when even the girls names were masculine in their sounds (eg Joan, Jane).

I also remember that there were over 20 boys names that had been in the top100 over the 50 years but only 5 girls names (eg Hannah, Maria).

There was one highly cyclical boys name that I will try to remember. Completely dropped off the top100 and then reappeared.

First names have been an obsession of mine since I was a little girl but for some reason now Im pregnant I haven't even started thinking about the name for our baby.

Right, Im sure ive lost everyone now with my geekiness!

Thinking of all the primary school children I know off (via friends, family, DD's school and friends and the infasnt school I work at).

I don't know any girls with the following names:

11 MIA

13 CHARLOTTE

17 ISABELLE

18 ISABELLA

21 AVA

23 SUMMER

27 FREYA

29 POPPY

32 MOLLY - But I do know a Mollie, my DD

33 IMOGEN

34 AMY

37 SCARLETT

38 LEAH

39 SOPHIA

40 ELIZABETH

42 BROOKE

48 LILLY - ^but know of girls called Lily
49 AMBER

51 LAUREN

53 GRACIE

56 MADISON

57 AMELIE

58 PAIGE

60 LACEY

61 SIENNA

62 LIBBY - know a Liberty though

66 ROSIE

67 TIA

69 MAYA

72 SARAH

73 LEXI

74 MADDISON

75 ALISHA

76 SOFIA

77 SKYE

78 NICOLE

79 LEXIE

85 JULIA

86 AIMEE

89 EVELYN

91 MARIA

92 FRANCESCA
93 TILLY

98 COURTNEY

I don't know any boys with the following names:

1 JACK

16 MOHAMMED

17 DYLAN

19 ALEXANDER

21 RYAN

22 LIAM

23 JAKE

26 TYLER

27 CALLUM

28 MATTHEW

29 JAYDEN

30 OSCAR

31 ARCHIE

32 ADAM

34 HARVEY

36 LUCAS

37 MUHAMMAD

38 HENRY

40 LEO

44 LOGAN

47 ALEX

48 OWEN

49 RHYS

50 NATHAN

51 JAMIE

53 MASON

54 TOBY

62 LEON

63 HARLEY

64 DAVID

65 MOHAMMAD

67 KIAN

68 KAI

70 BRANDON

71 HAYDEN

75 ASHTON

76 BAILEY

81 BRADLEY

82 ELLIOT

84 TAYLOR

86 COREY

88 JOEL

89 ROBERT

90 ELLIS

91 BLAKE

92 AIDAN

93 LOUIE

94 CHRISTOPHER
95 EWAN - know a Euan

96 JAY - but know a Jai

97 MORGAN

99 SEAN

I am suprised at how many names I have still on those lists.

Well dome to fatima on the sats! Really interesting.

I actually know about 65 children with the girl's names, but not all very well - I'm a teacher and run local toddler group, on preschool committee etc. (all very boring but explains why I know so many!) Vast majority of these girls are 0-9 years.

Would love to work out boys but might have to wait til tomorrow incase my no. 36 wakes again in the night or my no. 27 gets up early!

DD is in a class of 15 (14 different girl's names). 11 of these 14 names are in the top 100, and DD's name is there are the more popular spelling. The other two are Annabel (Anna is in top 100 though) and Liberty.

Try again...

www.statistics.gov.uk/StatBase/Product.asp?vlnk=15282&Pos=&ColRank=1&Rank=422