427 years after William Shakespeare first wrote it in the great “tragedy” Romeo and Juliet, England is asking the quintessential question – “What’s in a name?” – And this time I am wondering what might be the significance of that question in the next 42.7 years.
The Department of Statistics in the United Kingdom has revealed in its latest dataset that Muhammad is officially the most popular name for a newborn boy in England and Wales. More than 4,600 babies were registered with this name in 2023 – the most for a boy. Muhammad was also the second most popular name in 2022.
Noah, which was once the most popular name in Britain, fell to second place this year, according to the Office for National Statistics, or ONS.
But staff at the Statistical Office of Great Britain have actually been noticing this trend for some time. Listing the most popular names in the UK, among other important statistics, it was revealed that Muhammad is one of the top 10 names for babies from 2016.
Adding to the excitement, the statistics department said other spellings of the name Muhammad – namely Mohammed and Mohammed – also made the top 100 list for England and Wales. This is because it treats each spelling as a separate name, the ONS explained.
The data shows that George, Harry and Charlotte are no longer popular names for babies in the UK, with Elizabeth and Charles also not being favorites among young parents.
The nine other top names for newborn boys in the UK are Noah, Oliver, George, Leo, Arthur, Luca, Theodore, Oscar and Henry.
For newborn girls, the ten most popular names in the UK in 2023 were – Olivia, Amelia, Isla, Lily, Freya, Ava, Ivy, Florence, Willow and Isabella. The top three names for girls remained unchanged for the third year in a row.
The statistics office also said that new entries in the list of the top 100 baby names include Hazel, Lilah, Autumn, Nevaeh and Raya for girls and Jacques, Enzo and Bodhi for boys.
It further added that the time of year also played an important role in parents choosing the name. In the month of December, names like Holly, Robin, and Joseph were more popular, while names like Summer and Autumn were popular in their respective seasons.
The data revealed that pop culture also played a big role in how baby names were chosen. The most popular celebrity names for babies include music artists Billie Eilish and Lana Del Rey, the Kardashian-Jenner family’s baby names like Reign and Saint, and film stars like Margot Robbie and Cillian Murphy.
The statistics office said the number of top names for boys is much higher than that for girls. This is because there are many more unique names for baby girls than for boys. The number of unique names for girls is over 35,000, while for boys, including variations of the same name, the number is 29,560.
