Harry and Amelia most popular names in England and Wales

While the top 5 names haven’t changed much since the year before, celebrity baby names boosted names like Ivy to the 88th most popular (168th in 2011) and ensured Violet made an appearance in the top 100 for the first time (114th in 2011).

The top five for boys:

1. Harry (1st in 2011)

2. Oliver (2nd in 2011)

3. Jack (3rd in 2011)

4. Charlie (5th in 2011)

5. Jacob (7th in 2011)

The top five for girls:

1. Amelia (1st in 2011)

2. Olivia (2nd in 2011)

3. Jessica (4th in 2011)

4. Emily (5th in 2011)

5. Lily (3rd in 2011)

Mohammed didn’t make it into the official top 100 because it has so many different spellings. If all spellings were grouped together, it would have pushed Oliver out the way for the number 2 spot. Overall, Mohammed (and its varying spellings) was given 7,139 times, just 29 times fewer than Harry.

It is not the only name that would appear higher if variations were taken account of. If counted together, Lilly and Lily would shove Olivia off the number 2 spot.

Molly, which also appears on the list as Mollie, would also be higher up.

The trend for vintage names isn’t fading: Elsie (70th) was the highest climber, up 17 places from 2011. And Hugo (88th) and Theodore (97th) were newcomers to the top 100.

Losing popularity were names like Aiden (down 19 to 80th), Finlay (down 17 to 83rd) and Isobel (down 18 to 98th).

The Office for National Statistics says there was a great diversity of baby names this year. The top 100 for boys and girls only accounts for 13% of names chosen in 2012. Over 28,000 different boys’ names and over 36,000 different girls’ names were registered.

The 2013 list will be published in August 2014. It will be interesting to see if there will be a spike in popularity for names like George (currently 12th) after the birth of the royal baby.

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