ONS 2022 PREDICTIONS THREAD

[ZoyaTheDestroyer]

Roll up and give your best ONS Baby Names 2022 predictions!

It’s that time again. The ONS baby name data for England and Wales in 2022 is due to be published any day now and MNers tend to be pretty spot on with their predictions.

To help, here’s a reminder of the top tens for boys and girls from 2021:

1 Noah
2 Oliver
3 George
4 Arthur
5 Muhammad
6 Leo
7 Harry
8 Oscar
9 Archie
10 Henry

1 Olivia
2 Amelia
3 Isla
4 Ava
5 Ivy
6 Freya
7 Lily
8 Florence
9 Mia
10 Willow

The Scottish data for 2022 has been out since March and the top tens (well, top 11 for boys) for Scotland were:

1 Noah
2 Jack
3 Leo
4 Harris
5 Luca
6 Oliver
7 Rory
8 Archie
9= Theo
9= Alfie
9= James

1 Olivia
2 Isla
3 Freya
4 Millie
5 Emily
6 Amelia
7= Grace
7= Sophie
9= Ella
9= Ava

The biggest climbers in Scotland were Luca and Maeve, and I certainly expect the latter to make a significant jump in the E&W data too.

Let’s have your predictions, please!

How hard is it to make this list that it takes this long?! Surely all the names basically immediately go into a database when the children are born? I didn't think they did that much extra data analysis like combining Mohammed and Muhammad

I hope it isn't delayed beyond March - I'm due in June!

Absolutely love that someone did an FOI request. Maybe more of us should!

Maybe they're triple checking the data because a name hovering towards the end of the top 1000 vas suddenly broken into the top 10 😂

Balonz?

Funnily enough I came across this the other day too as it's one of the first things that comes up now when you Google when will the ONS 2022 baby names be released? I was too busy at the time to post about it on here and then totally forgot about it so thanks for updating the thread!

I kind of took it with a pinch of salt at first as it seems strange they would answer one specific FOI request with a date, yet stil not update the baby names page or release calendar. However, since it's nearly the end of 2023 now and we're still no nearer to a date being officially announced I can quite believe now that it will be that late. It's getting beyond a joke.

Be prepared for the biggest leaps in popularity since records began in the 2023 and 2024 data (which will probably be released in 2026 and 2030 respectively) as people genuinely have no idea how popular their top choices currently are anymore. Given that it's quite common for people to seek something outside the top 100, I have a feeling many will be disappointed when they see their 2 year old's name has actually leapt into the top 50 the year they were born.

Some 2022 babies will be 2 years 2 months by March 2024 for God's sake!

It is ridiculous, how long can it take for a spreadsheet to crunch some name data?

My DH doesn't get it at all but I like to know the stats. My real name is ranked around 900 which feels like a comfy half way point between 'popular' and 'out there'.

Then again, that was in 2021 and it could have dropped out of the top 1000 or have shot up to the top 500 by now and I wouldn't know.

Surely releasing that data so late on renders it semi useless? How disappointing.

I was just looking for this again and found the thread. Can't believe they've moved it further back, they told me December a couple of months ago when I emailed them but clearly that's not the case anymore.

Can't believe the data has STILL not been released It's ridiculous.

On the ONS website again and it seems it will be April at the earliest, as the name data is now bundled in with the Birth Characteristics data. Also, reading the FOI requests about the 2022 name data concerns me a bit that the data this year won't as comprehensive as previous years.

The next publication of our Births Characteristics bulletin will include an additional table of names of babies born in 2022 in England and Wales. This is planned for publication in April 2024.

Hopefully I'm reading into this too much, but usually there's multiple tabs of data (top 100 for E&W, top hundred for England, top hundred for Wales, top 10 by region, top 10 by month, full dataset of names given more than three time, top name in each region, and top hundred by maternal age). I really don't want this condensed into one tab, and that if it is one tab, we get the data with every name given over three times not just the top hundred.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/releases/birthcharacteristicsinenglandandwales2022

Thanks for sharing @toastofthetown. It's all getting rather tedious, it will be so out of date by the time they release it.

I wonder if it's because the top boys name is now Mohammed and they are wondering when to release it because of the general election coming up.

I doubt it. Firstly, Muhammad is already the fifth most popular name and it’s unlikely that either the names above Muhammad would each decrease significantly enough for Muhammad to rank top, or Muhammad is led would have a significant uptick in use.

Also, if the ONS reverted to the pre-Covid release schedule then the list would have been published in August last year, far from this year’s general election. Even if they kept the Covid delay, that would have been October, where the stats would have been forgotten by election season.

I think Olivia has had it's moment and will drop.

I think Elsie, Etta and Ava will continue to climb

I agree. I don't know any little Olivia's but know tons of Etta, ettie etc

I’m back to my new favourite hobby of scouting the FOI requests for updated information on the release dates, and it seems like the plan for the release of the 2023 data is July 2024. Hopefully that’s right and we’ll be back on schedule with a normal delay for processing data.

2022 names are still forecast to be April.

I don't think Olivia will drop much but there will be many new names coming up.
I don't know any very young Olivers or Olivias but the names are being registered.

Margot and Arlo will probably be far more popular - I think parents were choosing them thinking the were a bit unusual without realising that many others thought the same.

Some names seem to spring from nowhere into the top 100/50/20. Hallie seems to have come from nowhere.

Muhammad/Muhammed/Mohamed/Mohamad/Mohammed/Mohammad are collectively very popular but the spellings aren't combined in the statistics.

Thank you! Do we know when in April for the 2022 data?

Not yet, and there’s still a (provisional) after April. This is the release though and hopefully we’ll have a date (or even the dataset!) soon.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/releases/birthcharacteristicsinenglandandwales2022

Thank you! Let’s hope it actually is released in April 🤞🤞

Checking in again at the end of March, and the 2022 Birth Characteristics dataset which will include names for the first time has been pushed back to May 😫😡 Almost half of the children this release pertains to will be 2 years old, even if they meet this new deadline - which I don't have much faith in at this point.

Did they ever respond to anyone saying why it’s so late? This is crazy, May is barely worth it and I have little faith they’ll get back on track for 2023 data.

This was the explanation from a previous FOI request. 2023 names are predicted for July, based on another FOI request, but like you I have a lot of scepticism.

The next publication of our Births Characteristics bulletin will include an additional table of names of babies born in 2022 in England and Wales. This is planned for publication in April 2024.
Our annual publications follow a yearly cycle, where certain statistical bulletins need to be published before others. For example, our headline Births in England and Wales bulletin includes the first release of annual births data. It is published before more in-depth Births Characteristics bulletin and Baby Names statistics. They all use the same data, and this ensures an orderly release of statistics, relying on a proportionate number of statisticians, as per the statistics code of practice.
Last year, mid-year population estimates, which are needed for producing some of our statistics, were not published until 23 November 2023. This was later than the usual summer release, and a result, all the dependent births publications have been delayed too.

Totally ridiculous. I can’t think of any good reason as to why it would need to be delayed

It’s annoying.

agree with what others have said, I think Margot, Maeve, Aurora, Ottilie will be big climbers for girls. Ezra, Arlo, Reuben, Theo/Theodore and Arthur for boys. I keep hearing Milo here too. I think Charlotte might now be more popular than Olivia and Amelia.

I think Olivia and Oliver might be falling a bit. I also don’t hear of as many Harrys, Jacks and Noahs as I once did.