Most Popular Baby Names Revealed
29 August 2019, 10:54
The top 100 first names for baby boys and girls in England and Wales in 2018 have been revealed.
For boys, Oliver remained the most popular name for the sixth year in a row, while for girls, Olivia remained the most popular name for girls for the third year in a row.
Top 10
Arthur was the only new entry into the top 10 names for boys in 2018, replacing Jacob.
Sophia and Grace replaced Poppy and Lily in the top 10 names for girls.
Top 100
Grayson, Jasper, Rowan, Tobias, Sonny and Dominic entered the top 100 names for boys in 2018.
Ada, Delilah, Ayla, Zoe, Margot and Felicity entered the top 100 names for girls in 2018.
Oliver and Olivia are still the most popular baby names in England and Wales – Oliver for the sixth year in a row, Olivia for the third 👶 https://t.co/WuJ8CDSwBh pic.twitter.com/aSVj3ZuXQq
— Office for National Statistics (@ONS) August 29, 2019
Mothers aged 35 years and over tended to prefer more “traditional” names, compared with mothers aged under 25 years who were more likely to choose more “non-traditional”, shortened or hyphenated names.
Regionally, Olivia was the most popular name for girls throughout England and Wales, while Oliver was outranked by Muhammad in four of the nine English regions, and by Harry in the North East.
The ONS commented: "Arthur surged into the top 10 boys’ names for the first time since the 1920s, and Ada jumped into the girls’ top 100 for the first time in a century too, both perhaps inspired by characters in the BBC TV drama Peaky Blinders.
"On the flipside, the growth in the use of technology assistants in our homes may help to explain why the number of baby girls named Alexa has more than halved compared with 2017. Communicating with young children can be hard enough at the best of times.”
