British Baby Names: Hot New Trends

This was one of those delicious mornings when I allowed myself to dip into the recent British baby names in the London Telegraph birth announcements. As usual, they didn’t disappoint (can you tell that my speech has suddenly acquired a British cadence?) and I managed to pick up on some actual trends.

The first is that, now that Americans have started following the British lead and using two middle names, the Brits are upping the ante by using three. Four first names total, ala Charlie Gaspar Geoffrey Langton: that’s one major new trend.

But in another way, British parents have started imitating Americans by using surnames and word names as middle names: besides Langton, there’s a Macmillan, a Melrose, a Tiger and a Capability here.

Some British baby names seem much more fashionable there than in the U.S.: Martha, Nancy, India, Alice, and Agatha for girls; Edmund, Otto, Hector, Ralph, and Benedict for boys. I guess we know why they use Benedict and we don’t. But can someone British please explain to me your fondness for Alfie and Archie?

There also seems to be a trend toward having several charmingly-named children of one sex, followed by a charmingly-named child of the other sex, creating a family out of a storybook. I mean, when I read about little Hector, George, Inigo, and Alfred welcoming sister Poppy, or imagined Lettice, Beatrice, and Agatha gathered around the cradle of baby brother Atticus, I nearly abandoned this blog to rush off and write a series of adventure tales starring these lovely siblings.

Here, the new baby names from England:

Girls

Boys

Twins