The Office of National Statistics has released its annual survey of the most popular names given to babies in the UK. Harry comes out top for the boys with 7,523 recipients, while top spot for the girls goes to Amelia - chosen for 5,054 babies. There are a lot of reasons why the parents choose the names for their children, it’s all about their sources of information: family members, celebrities, people read books and find names they like. There are a lot of different reasons for people to choose names they do. So do you think for Harry should we be talking about Prince Harry or Harry Potter? It’s hard to know, isn’t it? We don’t actually ask parents why they choose the names they do. It’s interesting if you think of the girls names. Let’s go down to number 3 on the girl’s list: Lily and Ruby down there at number 6 and Grace. These are names of sort of comeback. You would have thought of such in Victorian times or even 20s and 30s, - names of working class origin. Yes, there’s a lot of traditionalism the way people name their children. Traditional names are coming back to the top of a hundred. People seem to want short strong names for boys, don’t’ they? Harry, Oliver (Oliver obviously becomes Ollie), Jack and Alfie and Tom. But there’s one surprise there: number 7 – Jacob. Do you think that’s because it can be shortened to Jake? It’s quite a biblical name. Yes, it’s been a favorite name. Is there the one you think particularly unusual either for girls or for boys? Obviously not from the top ten – we’re fairly familiar with those – but going down the list a little way. There are names for girls like Miracle and Bliss, for boys - Excellent and JJ. JJ? How are they spelling JJ? As two Js. Is that legal? There’s no real limit. The registering officer – what they do – if they think the name isn’t suitable, they recommend changing it, but it’s really up to the parents. You’re saying there’s a name with simply two letters JJ? Yes. I would have thought that going to cause that child problems! In later life you’re going to be asked to spell your name in call center and you will say, “JJ” and they’re going to say, “How are you spelling that?” You obviously don’t comment on the suitability. There’s no legal impediment then to making up a name? When parents are going to register - they will definitely avoid punctuation and things like that, potentially offensive but basically the register will accept most names. And do you know what number 100 is for boys and girls? For boys it’s John, you would think it’s quite a traditional name, but it seems to be at the bottom of the top100 at the moment. We will see where it is the next year. And girls number 100 is Lidia. Where is my name, - Tim? You’re not in top110 anymore! That’s a disgrace. I can’t believe it! Timothy is not there either.
Not even in the 100? Good heavens. Well, Liz, I’m shocked! Thank you for your time today! Interesting reading. Source: Voice of Russia.
