Baby names: most popular names for boys and girls in England and Wales ranked

Noah, Oliver, Olivia and Amelia remain the most popular names in England and Wales according to the Office for National Statistics -  but how popular is yours? Use our searchable tables to find out.
How popular is your name?How popular is your name?
How popular is your name?

Whether you like Noah or Nigel, Olivia or Kerry, great responsibility comes with naming a newborn – but is your preferred name falling out of fashion or heading to the top of the leaderboard?

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has today (5 October) published its annual ranking of the most popular baby names in England and Wales, based on  birth registration data for 2021.

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Our searchable table will allow you to check how popular your or your child’s name is this year – and how it has changed in popularity over the last five years’ worth of baby name rankings.

What are the most popular baby names?

The latest ONS results show Noah has knocked Oliver off the top spot to become the most popular boys’ name in England. Olivia remained the reigning top name for girls for the sixth year in a row.

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Henry also replaced Jack in the top 10 names for boys, while Freya, Florence and Willow displaced Isabella, Rosie, and Sophia for girls.

Regionally, Muhammad was found to be the most popular boys’ name in four out of nine English regions while Olivia was the top girls names in every region in England and in Wales, except for the East Midlands where Amelia was the most popular girls name.

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Disney and Kardashian inspired names

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Parents have also been inspired by famous figures from TV and film to name their little ones.

Saint, the name of Kim Kardashian and Kanye West’s second born, has jumped in popularity since he was born, increasing from five registrations in 2015 (when he was born) to 59 in 2021.

Luca has also seen a surge in popularity, possibly because of the hit Pixar film of the same name. In 2020 there were 1,323 boys named Luca, rising to 1,807 in 2021, making it the 28th-most popular name for boys.

The name Finn, one of the main characters from Star Wars’ The Force Awakens trilogy, also rose in popularity from 512 registrations for boys in 2015 to 788 in 2021. This could also be related to the Peaky Blinders character.

Norman and Kerry

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More traditional names, like Glenda and Nigel are few and far between and could be becoming endangered according to James Tucker, head of health and life events analysis at the ONS.

"While Noah and Olivia are enjoying their places at the top, some names could be in danger of falling out of favour. Leslie has had relatively little popularity in recent years with fewer than seven boys named each year since 2018,” Mr Tucker said.

“Others such as Clifford, Nigel and Norman have not fared much better with 10 or fewer boys being named. Girls’ names such as Glenda and Kerry, that were more common before, are also becoming endangered and we have seen less than five girls being named each year since 2018.”

What names are going to be the most popular in 2022?

Earlier this year ) the BabyCentre website revealed its rankings of the most popular names of 2022 so far, with new favourites emerging –   Zion, Elliot, Madison and Raya had all entered the top 100 names in the first half of the year..

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Other names that had previously featured in the website’s list had become less popular including Jasmine, Clara, Elodie, Lola and Amelie for girls, and Joseph, Edward, Ronnie, Stanley and Milo for boys.

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