How popular are the top 100 names?

[nappyaddict]

I have just looked through them here

Of the boys names, the only primary aged ones I've not come across are:

Zachary (but I know a Zack)
Gabriel
David
Bailey
Robert
Ewan

And for the girls:

Gracie (but I know Graces)
Anna
Tia
Faith
Hope
Julia
Maria
Florence
Courtney
Maryam

I thought that there was a smaller cluster of well-used boys names but the spread of girls names was more even. So the Top Ten boys names might be 40% of all names (guess) but Top Fifty girls names might be 50% (have a feeling the maths doesn't stack up there but you know what I mean)

SUMMER

BROOKE

LACEY
LAYLA

JULIA

MARIA

MARYAM

MOHAMMED

CHARLES
BAILEY

The above I don't know any of. Overall though the top 20 names of each are very popular, especially the boys. Every other baby is Oliver/Charlie/Alfie.

I think its the UK stats website that can give you an exact number of how many babies registered in England and Wales last updated in 2009

I think I remember 5400+ Olivia's

I seem to come across lots and lots of Eves, Evas, Evies, Isobels, Isabelles and Isabellas. Also quite a few Islas of late. Aside from that I haven't noticed multiple babies/children with the same names.

Ive got a Niamh at 70 but shes nearly 10 now. Ive got a Romilly 7 which when i looked was about the 982nd most popular name. Ive got a Connie and thats not in either. No one must like my names

My daughters class has 5 Ellies.

My favorite name is Ethne but everyone hates it.

That i know of we have the following at our school

David
Bailey
Robert
Ewan

Faith
Hope
Gracie

Just done a bit of maths with the 2009 figures. The girls top 100 make up 50% of all names where as the boys makes up 60%.

The girls top 10 makes up 13.6% of all names and the boys 16.8%. But there are less boys names overall.

[saddo smiley]

Actually I forgotI do know a Tia and a Faith.

I know a couple of little boys with the names Robert and David. I think people in Ireland are much more conservative with names though.

i think there's a fair bit of regional variation too
up here, i've never met an oliver, nor an olivia, yet i believe they've been in the top 3 for a god few years

I seem to remember that the ONS publish a list of names by county.

They also publish a list with ALL given names last year - it shows every single name and the number of boys/girls that were named any given name. That should give a good idea of how widespread a certain name is.

Do you know where you can get them from?

nappy, it was posted here a few weeks back. It must be somewhere on the ONS website, but I just had a quick look but couldn't find it. Maybe someone else knows how to find it?

Never met an Oliver! Wow. Ever other baby here is called Oliver its the John of this generation. The other 50% of boys are called Ben.

Hello

The link is here - www.statistics.gov.uk/StatBase/Product.asp?vlnk=15282&Pos=&ColRank=1&Rank=422

Go to the year you're interested in and then use the tabs at the bottom of the spreadsheet. I think that it's tab 6 that has all names registered that particular year. Oh, who am I kidding, I KNOW that it's tab 6 as I look at it pretty much every day... [definite saddo smiley]

I also like looking at the 100 most popular names from throughout the decades - lovely to see how fashions have changed!

Try again...

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

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.

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!

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.

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!

What did you study?

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!

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)

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...