This year, the most popular baby names were very similar to the most popular in 2019. But, there were some very unusual names that did spike in popularity during 2020.
According to babycentre.co.uk, the most popular picks for boys and girls in the year 2020 were as follows...
Top 10 baby names for girls
- Sophia
- Olivia
- Amelia
- Lily
- Isla
- Ava
- Mia
- Aria
- Freya
- Isabella
Top 10 baby names for boys
- Muhammad
- Noah
- Oliver
- Arthur
- Leo
- Freddie
- George
- Theo
- Charlie
- Jack
The office of National Statistics noted that “Freya and Lily replaced Emily and Ella in the top 10 girls’ names, while there were no new entries in the top 10 boys’ names in 2019.”
Despite this, there wasn’t a huge amount of change to the most popular names in 2020.
Nameberry noted that old fashioned names are starting to come back into style, with girls names like Violet (#26), Adelaide (#22) and Audrey (#29) and boys names like; Ezra (#16), Atticus (#8) and Eli (#26) all placing in the top 30 names.
Babynames.com made a powerful statement about BLM this year. There was also an increase in names popularised by black inspirational figures. According to babycentre.co.uk The name George (like George Floyd whose death sparked the BLM movement in 2020) stayed steady at #7 and other names like Rosa (Parks) and Martin (Luther King) both moved towards the top 100 list.
According to babycentre.co.uk, TV shows played a major contributor in some of the more unusual names that cropped up in the year.
The name Tiger was more popular in 2020 than ever before, which could be attributed to the success of the Tiger King Netflix series. The names Joe and Carole dropped in 2020 which could have been influenced by the negative portrayal of the stars Joe Exotic and Carole Baskin.
Similarly the name Connell and Arabella became more popular in 2020. This increase could be due to the success of the TV shows I May Destroy You starring Michaela Coel as Arabella and the adaptation of Sally Rooney’s novel Normal People starring Paul Mescal at Connell Waldren.
So if you are looking for an unusual name to give to your baby, you’d be better off not turning to characters in a TV show or old fashioned names because they are all the rage at the moment and your original name might not be as original as you first thought!
