As someone whose Notes app has been filled with potential baby names since I was thirteen years old, nothing thrills me more than name-based statistics.
Every year, the Office of National Statistics releases data on the most popular baby names for the previous year, split by region; and even further broken down by borough. So, we now know that Amelia and Muhammad were the most popular names for girls and boys born in London last year. But, if you dive deeper into the data, you might be quite surprised by the variation in names between boroughs. To list a few: Charlotte was the most popular girl’s name in Westminster, Sofia in Camden, Maya in Southwark, Maryam in Newham, and Olivia and Sienna took joint first place in Wandsworth.
Source: Baby names in England and Wales from the Office for National Statistics
For boys, Theodore was most popular name in Lambeth, Noah in Greenwich, David in Hackney, Adam in Ealing, and so on. All stats are based on the mothers’ usual area of residence.
Source: Baby names in England and Wales from the Office for National Statistics
The overall favourites for England and Wales were Muhammad and Olivia. Muhammed overtook Noah, which was favoured in 2022. The top three names for baby girls—Olivia, Amelia and Isla—remain the same as they the previous year.
Several new names hit the top 100 lists for boys and girls in 2023, including Autumn and Raya for girls, and Jax and Bodhi for boys. Names like Margot and Cillian also cropped up more in 2023 than usual, presumably influenced by blockbuster films Barbie and Oppenheimer, which were both released that year.