7 Things To Know About The New British Name Charts 🤔

Plus your weekly reading roundup

As a Britberry, the England and Wales baby name statistics release is a highlight of my year, so I’ve spent the last few days getting stuck into the new data.

There’s lots to say about it — look out for more on the Nameberry blog next week — but for now, here are 7 fun facts.

Top girl and boy names 2021 in each region of England, and Wales. Image adapted from source.

1. The most popular boy and girl names nationally were Noah and Olivia, but regionally Noah was only top in Wales — not in any region of England. (As in the map above.)

   • Olivia is also the top girl name in Scotland, but ranks 4th in Northern Ireland. Noah comes in second place behind Jack in both Scotland and Northern Ireland.

2. The England and Wales Top 100 shares 41 names for each gender in common with the USA’s Top 100. Join the fun and choose your favorite for each rank!

3. Names in the Top 100 in England but not Wales include Margot, Elizabeth, and Maryam for girls, and Felix, Kai, and Yusuf for boys. Names in the Top 100 in Wales but not England include Seren, Frankie, and Harlow for girls, and Osian, Myles, and Parker for boys. (See more at British Baby Names.)

4. The girl name with the biggest rank increase from 2020-2021 was Enola, inspired by Millie Bobby Brown’s character in the Enola Holmes movie. For boys, the highest riser was another movie name, Creed.

5. There were some interesting pairs of rising/falling names.

   • Apollo rose, but Orion fell.

   • Herbert rose, but Hubert fell.

   • Dennis and Brian and Stephen rose, but Denis and Bryan and Steven fell.

   • Katherine and Kate rose, but Kathleen and Katie and Kitty fell.

   • Mikayla rose, but Michaela fell.

6. Brits still love their hyphenated names. For girls, the favorite second parts are Rose and Mae, and the most popular hyphenated name was Ivy-Rose. For boys, Lee and James are the most common endings, with Tommy-Lee in the lead.

7. In total, 16,777 boy names and 21,958 girl names have been recorded since these statistics began in 1996. And that’s only the ones given to 3 or more boys or girls in a year!

Finally, if you to check a name’s popularity over time in England and Wales, this site is your best friend.

Have you read…?

• How Gen-Z Is Your Name? Find out the Top 50 names for people born from 1997-2012, and what makes them stand out.

• How I Named My Baby: triplets with ultra-modern, ultra-meaningful names.

• Where to find cool vintage boy names and girl names: sources of inspiration you might not have thought of!

• These names are a tad outrageous, but you might just love them #guiltypleasures