Name popularity

[toastofthetown]

Inspired by the 2020 ONS release. Oliver and Olivia were the most popular names for the fifth consecutive year, but that doesn’t tell the whole story at the top of the charts. Increasingly parents are moving away from the most popular names. The number of babies called the Top 100 names has dropped 7% for each sex since 2019. Since 1996 it's a 39% drop in babies given names in the Top 100.

Looking at the Top 10 there was a decrease in 8.5% for boys given these names compared with 2019 and almost a 10% drop for girls in the same time. Rosie entered the top ten, but there was actually one fewer Rosie born in 2020 than 2019.

Would you avoid a name just because it’s popular? What would you consider too popular to use, or does name popularity not affect you at all?

we chose a fairly unusual name - think bottom of top 100

Anything within the top 100 is still fairly popular.

I consider unusual names ones that are used less than say 50 times per year.

we chose a fairly unusual name - think bottom of top 100 and our child's godparents used it for their child.....so u cant necessarily win and maintain uniqueness

this is what sort of sucks about stats - probability is meaningful and helpful to some extent, but it's also not. There could be only one other baby called the same name all year, but just so happen to be in the same class as your child. Or you could choose number 1 name, Oliver, and find they are the only one in class, like others on this thread.

@sexesam

My daughter's name is well outside the top 100 (or was when she was born) I think 300 and something. But there is another in each of the 2 school years below her now. We chose the name for our own reasons but it's not a native name so knew it wouldn't be popular. I am not surprised the number of kids with he top 10 names are lower than historically. I think everyone is trying to find something a little bit different from every one else.

Same with me. It's now in top 15 24 years later.

I also think, regarding popularity, too much focus is put on current and recent popularity by MN, not longterm historic. Your child will only be in year group limited situations until 18-22 maximum. After that in the working world they will be mixed in with all other generations. My name is a medium-used classic and while I was the only one in my school year, since working there have always been at least 1 other, upto 4 others with the same name at a time. That's something I will be taking into consideration. E.g. Shannon is very uncommon now, only 15 born in 2020, but when mixed in with older generations suddenly seems a lot less unique.

@summ

@dreamingofsun

we chose a fairly unusual name - think bottom of top 100 and our child's godparents used it for their child.....so u cant necessarily win and maintain uniqueness

I'm not obsessed with uniqueness. I know someone with a Balthazar who moved areas to find another Balthazar in her son's class. That kind off thing can happen. It's more of a saturation issue. With a popular name you are more likely to have one in your class, another in your dance school, another at swimming, then when you go off to university and work you'll still be surrounded by people with the same name as you. It wouldn't bother everyone, but I was in my twenties before I could stop being Toast Surname in pretty much every situation and it did bother me.

My son was the first of his name registered in the country. Yesterday we met a baby [hisname].

@SummaLuvin, Shannon was very popular in the early 2000s, so a Shannon born now would name-wise be about 20 yrs older than she really is. It was a celebrity-inspired name at the time

If you love the name, use it, but also consider the child. Ageism is rife.

I get this perspective, but almost all names date to a certain extent, so I wouldn't let that worry me

Yeah I think there are a small number that don’t date. I’ve looked at the graphs on the ons website and you can search by name and James has just dropped out of the top 20 for the first time since 1904 (the start of the graph) so seems fairly timeless. I tried a bunch of other girl and boy names that I felt were fairly constant in their popularity but nothing came as close as James.
It’s a very interesting website, but annoyingly the graph only includes names that have, at one point since 1904, been in the top 100, which doesn’t include my name.

Where can you search for particular names not in the top 100 to see how many babies were given that name?

@SummaLuvin

I also think, regarding popularity, too much focus is put on current and recent popularity by MN, not longterm historic. Your child will only be in year group limited situations until 18-22 maximum. After that in the working world they will be mixed in with all other generations. My name is a medium-used classic and while I was the only one in my school year, since working there have always been at least 1 other, upto 4 others with the same name at a time. That's something I will be taking into consideration. E.g. Shannon is very uncommon now, only 15 born in 2020, but when mixed in with older generations suddenly seems a lot less unique.

I agree with that. Names which are very generational tied (like Janet) are likely to be less of a problem, as numbers are limited due to the name fading out, but for something like William, yes it's only 20th in the and Theodore is higher but William has been in the top 50 every decade since 1904, so they are everywhere.

Another popularity point I don't think people think about enough it how much names sound like other popular names. Eliana might be outside the top 200, but with six El- names in the top 100 alone it doesn't sound so distinct.

@Bitofachinwag

Where can you search for particular names not in the top 100 to see how many babies were given that name?

This is my favourite name website. Plots out all the ONS data year by year to help visualise name trends. names.darkgreener.com/#

The raw data is here. If you click on either 'Baby names for girls' or 'Baby names for boys' it will have a list of name data going back to 1996 with various tabs with different information in each one. On the more recent sheets it's Table 6 with the full list.
www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/livebirths/bulletins/babynamesenglandandwales/2020/relateddata

Thanks Toast

My sons name is always in the top 10 list but I always loved the name, it's not one that ages and I think it would have been daft to choose something I liked less just because of the popularity aspect.

I'm not so affected by other peoples choices that it would push me to think up something bizarre and unique. If I liked something bizarre and unique that would be a different story.

I would avoid the most popular names like top 5 especially for boys where the names are more concentrated. But I grew up with quite an uncommon name and was always sad that I couldn't get pencils etc with my name on! So wouldn't go too unusual either, somewhere in the middle.

I did try and choose names outside the top 100 but also didn't want anything too unusual or difficult to spell. My name was pretty unusual when I was growing up (became more popular in my 20s) and having to constantly spell it was a complete pain. Dd1's name was around the 300 mark when she was born and has stayed there, she's now 12. She hasn't had another one in either of her schools or extra curricular classes but I do know a couple through friends. DD2's name was just outside the top 100 and still is, but there is another in her drama class. There is also a very similar name that has been more popular so think more people are called that. I sometimes wish I'd go a bit more unusual with her but she's happy enough.

We just chose names we liked for our children. They are the sort of names that have been somewhere I the popular list for ever.
I tend to think that some names are popular simply because they are nice and people like them.
There were two with my son's name in his class and there were other girls in the school with my daughters' names, but not in the same class.
It always amused me when there were several children with the same unusual name. I imagine that their parents hoped that they'd be the only one, but they became popular all at once.
Once a person is out of school it really doesn't matter. They'll usually be mixing with people of all ages and nationalities, so there's plenty of variety.

Popularity really wouldn't/didn't bother me. I think if you love a name then use it.
On the list published today, there were 3640 Olivias and 4225 Olivers, out of 615557 live births in the same year. So the most popular, but hardly common.

On the list published today, there were 3640 Olivias and 4225 Olivers,

But add those to the tens of thousands Olivers and Olivias born during the past 10 or so years...!

@Blubells

On the list published today, there were 3640 Olivias and 4225 Olivers,

But add those to the tens of thousands Olivers and Olivias born during the past 10 or so years...!

Exactly! Oliver entered the top 100 in 1974 and was in the top 50 by 1984. It's been popular for over a generation. That's hundreds of thousands of Olivers. Olivia has been in the top hundred since between 1984-1994 and to top ten for 20 years.

Whether popularity is good or bad is subjective, but denying that two of the most popular names of the past few decades are hardly common makes no sense.

@Blubells @toastofthetown
Yes I realise they've been consistently popular for years. But still only a few thousand out of 600,000 or so babies born in each of those years. So they are very popular names in the statistics tables, but each year that's still only around 0.5% new Oliver/Olivia appearing, alongside 99.5% other names.

To put into context for me: over the past 30 years or so in the UK I've had six different jobs in my career, I've been to university twice, kids through school, large extended family and friend group crossing multiple generations. I don't know any Olivers and only one Olivia. Others may well know lots. But being top of the popular table doesn't mean you're going to meet one every week.

For me, popularity matters less than if a name is timeless. For example William and Elizabeth are popular but completely timeless and pretty classless (you'd struggle to guess how old a William or Elizabeth are or what their background is). Yes, there are many thousands of them out there so they could be considered "boring". But one persons boring is anothers historical - because they are so timeless, they have a myriad of amazing/interesting namesakes (from Shakespeare to Wilberforce, Elizabeth I to Elizabeth Fry etc), much more so than some less popular names or contemporary Isla and Arlo type ones, nice as they are.

Having said that, I think people are right when they say it seems easier to find a less popular (but still "normal"/historical/well known sounding) girls name which probably won't date - you could go Roman for instance: Julia, Cecilia, Claudia, Antonia etc. Whereas for boys the equilvalent feels somehow a bit dated: Julian, Cecil, Claude, Anthony. Hence why I think Antonia's brother is probably more likely to be William than Cecil (and we aren't surprised/it doesn't seem strange).

I saw the names today and was struck by the fact that I don't know anyone under the age of 8 called any of them.

The top 10 girls’ names in 2020 were:

Olivia
Amelia
Isla
Ava
Mia
Ivy
Lily
Isabella
Rosie
Sophia
The top 10 boys’ names in 2020 were:

Oliver
George
Arthur
Noah
Muhammad
Leo
Oscar
Harry
Archie
Jack

Honestly, yes, I would avoid a name that was really popular for that reason. I always loved the names Eve and Isabel, but would never use them now--they've just been done to death.