England and Wales, 1904–2025
The Name You Were Given
Every name registered for a newborn in England and Wales is public record. Type yours and see exactly how it rose, fell, or vanished, year by year, going back over a century.
Source: Office for National Statistics, birth registrations. Girls and boys as officially classified at registration; see the note at the bottom for what that means.
Try your own
This searches every name given to at least three babies in England and Wales in any year since 1996, plus the top 100 names from each decade back to 1904.
Try , , , , or your own.
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Parents stopped agreeing on names
In 1996, the 100 most popular boys’ names covered 73% of boys born in England and Wales. By 2025 it was 43%: a drop of two-fifths. Girls’ names moved the same way, from 60% to 35%.
The most popular single name tells the same story on a smaller scale. In 1996 the top girls’ name, Sophie, was given to 2.24% of baby girls: roughly 1 in 45. By 2025 the top name, Olivia, had fallen to 0.84%: roughly 1 in 119, even while holding first place for a tenth year running. Being the most popular name in England and Wales now means something quieter than it used to.
Share of boys born with one of the top 100 names
1996 to 2025
Share of girls born with one of the top 100 names
1996 to 2025
Some names move overnight
Most names drift for years. A handful jump the moment they're heard somewhere new: the exact count of babies given each name, the year before and the year after.
1998 to 1999, England and Wales. “…Baby One More Time” reached UK No. 1 in February 1999. Rank went from 1,979th to 148th in a single year, a 39× jump in births.
2001 to 2002. “Whenever, Wherever” was inescapable through 2002. Rank went from 732nd to 170th.
2005 to 2006. Preston, singer of The Ordinary Boys, appeared on Celebrity Big Brother in January 2006 (he finished fourth). Rank went from 781st to 149th that year.
A slower kind of change
Not every shift is a single-year spike. Muhammad rose for three decades, then overtook everything else.
In 1996 it ranked 108th among boys' names, given to 441 babies. By 2010 it had reached 31st. By 2023 it was, for the first time, the single most popular boys' name registered in England and Wales, and it has stayed there for three years running since. That is for this exact spelling; variant spellings like Mohammed or Mohammad are counted separately and would push the combined total further ahead still.