Telegraph 2012 First Name Top 10s

Here are the top 10s for the Telegraph 2012 birth announcement names.

Female first names:

First Name	Total	% of total female first name	Position in England and Wales charts (2011, ONS)
Florence	21	3.26	43
Matilda	16	2.48	48
Elizabeth	14	2.17	44
Isla	13	2.02	15
Sophie	13	2.02	6
Alice	11	1.71	37
Beatrice	11	1.71	126
Charlotte	11	1.71	21
Jessica	10	1.55	4
Rose	10	1.55	76

I've put the % of total female first names and position in England and Wales charts there to show just how divergent the Telegraph names are. Amelia, the #1 name in England and Wales national stats in 2011 (2012 stats aren't out until the summer) comprised 1.4% of total births. Only two of the names in the top 10 are from the England and Wales top 10. The top 3 are all in the 40s of the national stats.

Male first names:

First name	Total	% of male first names	Position in England and Wales charts (2011, ONS)
George	28	3.91	12
William	27	3.77	10
Henry	26	3.63	28
Charles	24	3.35	60
Harry	24	3.35	1
Arthur	23	3.21	68
Edward	23	3.21	40
Alexander	22	3.07	23
Frederick	21	2.93	96
Thomas	21	2.93	6

Unlike Florence in the female names, there is no clear leader in the male names - George, William and Henry are all separated by one birth. I guess that Harry is probably the most popular name here - a decent number of the 26 Henrys will probably be known as Harry.

Although there are a larger number of male birth announcements (717 compared with 645 female birth announcements), there are fewer different names on this list (190 compared with 253), and the top 10 makes up a much larger percentage (31% compared with 16%). As I mentioned on the word clouds, male naming patterns for Telegraph birth announcers remain conservative, focussng on a narrower selection of first names for males than females.

Male middle names:

Middle Names	Total
James	55
William	49
John	47
Edward	37
George	33
Charles	28
Alexander	27
Henry	25
David	24
Robert	23

This includes all middle names so in James Frederick Alexander then both Frederick and Alexander were counted (unlike yesterday's word cloud, where I only did first middle name). I haven't done percentages for these, but there were 405 different middle names given, out of 1063 total middle names so 33% of male middle names given were in the top 10 (but not necessarily to 33% of births because there could be someone with three middle names all in the top 10 meaning that he would be counted three times).

James is at the top, with William not far below. James is #11 for first names. John, David and Robert (#=29 and 1 and 2 births respectively in the first names list) all appear. David and Robert were both popular throughout the 20th century but have reduced in popularity in recent years. Their presence in this list may represent naming after a brother, father, grandfather or friend. Only six males were given Harry as a middle name, this may show that Harry is seen as too informal for a middle name - the most popular nickname as a middle name is Jack with 12 births.

There is also a trend of giving a surname as a middle name - lots of parents seem to have chosen a surname as a middle name, probably a family name - but as there are so many different family names then this trend isn't shown in the top 10. It's also hard to tell whether a family chose, for example, Campbell because it was a family surname or because they like the sound and are buying into the unrelated surnames trend.

Female middle names:

Middle Names	Total
Rose	60
Elizabeth	49
Mary	39
Florence	30
Grace	28
Alice	25
Beatrice	13
Charlotte	12
Catherine	10
Jane	10
May	10

There were 864 total middle names so the top 11 (as Catherine, Jane and May all had 10 instances) makes up 33% of the names. -ce or -se seems to be a what makes an attractive middle name for parents - as seen in Rose, Florence, Grace, Alice and Beatrice (and also Louise which is #=13). Unlike the male names, there seems to be less of an instinct to honour a family member - Elizabeth, Mary and Catherine may represent that trend, but they've all also been popular middle name elements since the 19th century.

There are fewer instances in the girls names of surnames - there seems to be a trend towards more males getting surname middle names than females, are surnames seen as more masculine as they are passed down the male line?

On average, males had 1.5 middle names whereas females had 1.33 - this can be attributed to males getting a family surname added on at the end of their name, whereas females just get personal names.