Women’s names

What’s in a name? A rose by any other name would smell as sweet… Popularity of women’s names over the centuries

by Donald Hatch

(The use of the name Rose fell from one in 350 in the 13th century to 1 in 500 in 1700, rose again to one in 340 by 1850 but is now just one in 1000).

The great increase in the number of men’s names and the fluctuation in their popularity in recent years, and the background to this study, were dealt with in the previous article. We turn now to female forenames in England. The origin of the information for both articles is given under “Sources” in the previous article.

The 13th, 17th and 18th centuries

Based on a sample of 1400 Essex names in the 13th century and somewhat smaller samples from three Buckinghamshire parishes in the 17th and 18th centuries, as few as 10 names accounted for 56% of all baptisms in the 13th century and 70 to 80% in the 17th and 18th centuries.

Table 1 – Most common female names in the 13th, 17th and 18th centuries

	13th century*			17th century**			(Late) 18th century***			Frequency in 2001, %
Rank	Name	%	Cu %	Name	%	Cu %	Name	%	Cu %	Names in:
										13th C	17th C	18th C
1	Alice	11	11	Elizabeth	19	19	Mary	16	16	0.7	0.7	0.1
2	Matilda	10	22	Mary	16	35	Elizabeth	12	28	0.1	0.1	0.7
3	Joan(na)	6	28	Ann	14	49	Ann	11	39	0.2	0.1	0.1
4	Agnes	6	34	Sarah	8	56	Sarah	10	49	0.01	0.7	0.7
5	Emma	4	38	Joan(na)	5	61	Hannah	5	54	0.9	0.2	1.6
6	Isabella	4	42	Jane	4	65	Susan(na)	4	59	1.3	0.1	0.1
7	Margery	4	46	Alice	4	69	Lucy	4	63	–	0.7	1.5
8	Christiana	4	49	Susan(na)	4	72	Eliza	3	66	–	0.1	0.1
9	Rohesia	3	52	Catherine	3	75	Martha	3	68	–	0.6	0.1
10	Juliana	3	56	Margaret	3	78	Jane	2	70	–	0.1	0.1

* 1407 names from the Essex Feet of Fines
** 1588 baptisms at Beaconsfield, Whaddon and Little Woolstone
*** 653 baptisms at Beaconsfield and Little Woolstone
Cu % – Cumulative percentage

13th century

Most of the names listed are in common use today, an exception being Rohesia. There are however a number of less common 13th century names which are now unknown, such as Albreda, Basilia, Celestria, Estrilda, Galiena, Gundreda, Gunilda, Gunnora, Hawisa, Helewisa, Idorea and Wymarc. Of the 94 names occurring more than once in the 13th century sample, more than 30 are now obsolete.

17th century

All of the commonest 17th century names are in use today. Of the 75 names in the sample only a few have become obsolete; Lettice, Mathy, Abell, Ealse and Temperance being examples.

Late 18th century

Little had changed by this time in a conservative rural England. As in the 13th and 17th centuries second names were still very rare and the concentration on a few popular names was still very marked. 70% of all males still shared the top 10 names in this small sample of baptisms.

The Victorian period

The great social and industrial changes in England in this period were also marked by major changes in the use of forenames. The large sample of 51500 brides (1867 – 1886) yielded 424 different names, and although the top 10 still accounted for 59% of the total (for the grooms this was 72%), one in a hundred women shared about 250 separate names, most of which are still in use today. Some indeed, once rare, have become commonplace; see under “Losers and winners”. The table shows the development of the top 10 in Victorian England:-

Table 2 – Most common names given in the Victorian period

Rank	1838	1853	1868	1883	1898		Brides
							1867-86
1	Mary	Mary	Mary	Mary	Mary		Mary
2	Elizabeth	Elizabeth	Elizabeth	Elizabeth	Florence		Elizabeth
3	Sarah	Sarah	Sarah	Alice	Annie		Sarah
4	Ann	Ann	Alice	Florence	Edith		Ann
5	Jane	Jane	Eliza	Annie	Elizabeth		Jane
6	Hannah	Eliza	Emma	Edith	Ethel		Emma
7	Emma	Emma	Ann	Sarah	Alice		Eliza
8	Eliza	Ellen	Emily	Ethel	Elsie		Ellen
9	Ellen	Hannah	Annie	Emily	Dorothy		Margaret
10	Harriet	Emily	Jane	Ellen	Margaret		Hannah
% top 10	67%	61%	52%	42%	36%		59%
Nr. names in top 99%
	102	115	131	158	169		171

The 20th century

More and more names came into use and the rankings began to show marked fluctuations, especially after 1945. Table 3 indicates movements in the most popular names during the course of the 20th century:-

Table 3 – Most common names given in the 20th Century

Rank	1914	1934	1944	1964	1974	1984
1	Mary	Margaret	Margaret	Susan	Sarah	Sarah
2	Margaret	Jean	Patricia	Julie	Claire	Laura
3	Doris	Mary	Christine	Karen	Nicola	Gemma
4	Dorothy	Joan	Mary	Jacqueline	Emma	Emma
5	Kathleen	Patricia	Jean	Deborah	Lisa	Rebecca
6	Florence	Sheila	Ann	Tracey	Joanne	Claire
7	Elsie	Barbara	Susan	Jane	Michelle	Victoria
8	Edith	Doreen	Janet	Helen	Helen	Samantha
9	Elizabeth	June	Maureen	Diane	Samantha	Rachel
10	Winifred	Shirley	Barbara	Sharon	Karen	Amy

It has been the post-war period, and in particular the last twenty years, that has seen the greatest increase in the use of new and unusual names, even more so for girls than boys. Although a few names have retained their popularity, such as Hannah and Emma, there is a great deal of fluctuation with names becoming popular over the course of a few years and then declining as fast. The short-lived popularity of certain names, such as Shirley, is clearly linked to celebrities at the time.

Names in 2001

The most conspicuous feature is the great number of names in use and the consequently much lower frequency of even the most common ones. In 1838 every other baby girl was registered as Mary, Elizabeth, Sarah, Ann or Jane, in 2001 only 1 in 10 belonged to the top 5. The top 10 now only account for 18% of females, and the total number of names in use (with at least 10 registered births in 2001) is nearly 1000.

Table 4 – Most common names given in 2001

Rank	Forename	%, (of which	Cumulative %
	(incl. diminutives)	diminutives)
1	Chloe	2.5	2
2	Emily	2.1	5
3	Megan (Meg)	2.0 (0.1)	7
4	Jessica (Jessie)	1.8 (0.1)	8
5	Lauren (Laurie)	1.7 (0.0)	10
6	Hannah	1.6	12
7	Ellen (Ellie)	1.6 (1.4)	13
8	Sophie	1.6	15
9	Charlotte	1.5	16
10	Lucy	1.5	18

In some cases the diminutive has become (much) more popular than the original name. Ellie for example, unknown in the Victorian registrations, was in 2001 nearly 7 times as common as Ellen. There is a much smaller effect than with males from the introduction of non-English names from immigrants, examples of which are Aisha, Alisha, Fatima, Halima, Sumayyah and Aneesha.

Losers and winners

It is interesting to look at names that were popular in the Victorian period and have now sunk almost without trace, and those names that were rare then but common now.

Of the top 43 names (90% of all registrations) in the early Victorian period few have actually disappeared, exceptions being Fanny, Betsy and Ada, (not in the top 1000 names registered in 2001). The top names with the greatest decline since Victorian times are Mary, Ann, Jane and Agnes (now 1% of the frequency then) and Eliza and Margaret (3 and 4%). Of the next 128 Victorian names (up to 99% of all registrations) only a few were Biblical, such as Ruth, Leah, Naomi, Keziah, and Hephzibah.

Seven of these top 43 names are actually more common now; Kate/Katie (3x), Rebecca (2.5x), and Eleanor and Lucy (2x). Emily remains similar at about one name in 45 in both periods.

Other remarkable absences from the 2001 list, (with Victorian frequencies given as one occurrence per so many registrations), are Rhoda (599), Priscilla (668), Dorothy (827), Janet (840), Bessie (930) and Barbara (965). No less than 68 names that appeared in the top 100 at least once in the period 1934 – 74 were absent from the 2001 list, the following appearing in at least 4 of these 5 decades; Barbara, Carol, Jill/Gillian, Janet, Lesley, Maureen, Pamela, Pauline, Sheila, Shirley, Valerie and Yvonne.

Of the names common now, some were unknown in the Victorian period:-

Table 5 – Names in the 2001 top 80 appearing since Victorian times

Ranking in 2001		Frequency in 2001*		Ranking in 2001		Frequency in 2001*
	Name				Name
1	Chloe	41		56	Jodie	262
3	Megan	49		57	Casey	262
5	Lauren	59		58	Aisha	263
16	Caitlin	84		59	Paige	263
18	Bethany	98		60	Chelsea	265
21	Mia	107		61	Niamh	268
23	Jasmine	115		62	Madison	268
26	Ella	127		63	Charlie	272
28	Jade	137		64	Alisha	272
32	Shannon	145		65	Natasha	274
40	Alexandra	183		66	Freya	283
42	Kiera	187		67	Maisie	283
44	Amber	199		68	Tia	286
46	Nicole	208		70	Yasmin	303
48	Erin	222		71	Imogen	314
50	Danielle	245		73	Morgan	335
52	Kayleigh	255		74	Gemma	336
53	Tegan	255		80	Annabel	355

* One occurrence in x registrations

Figure 1 – Popularity of women’s names from the 13th century to 2001

Figure 1 illustrates how the popularity of the most frequently occurring women’s names has fluctuated over the last 800 years:

Second names

The use of second names only began in earnest in the 19th century. The variety of second names in use in the Victorian period was about the same as first names, and in most cases the same popular first names were used as second names.

Table 6 – Most popular second names, Victorian period

Second name	1838	1853	1868	1883	1898
% females with 2nd name	20%	31%	47%	48%	54%
1	Ann	Ann	Ann	Ann	May
2	Jane	Jane	Elizabeth	Elizabeth	Elizabeth
3	Elizabeth	Elizabeth	Jane	Jane	Mary
4	Maria	Mary	Ellen	Mary	Ann
5	Anne	Maria	Mary	Ellen	Ellen
6	Mary	Ellen	Alice	May	Maud
7	Louisa	Hannah	Maria	Alice	Annie
8	Hannah	Louisa	Eliza	Annie	Jane
9	Sarah	Alice	Hannah	Maud	Alice
10	Eliza	Eliza	Emma	Eliza	Florence
Top 10 2nd names*	84%	79%	66%	55%	45%
Top 10 1st names**	67%	61%	52%	42%	36%

* as a percentage of all females with second names
** see Table 2

A sub-sample of about 5000 brides (1867 – 1886) gave 1414 (28%) with a second name. Together they shared about 125 different second names; the top 10 represented 81% of all the names in use. Ann and Jane dominated with 40% and 14%. It was more common to give, or at least to register, a second name for a girl (28%) than a boy (14%), although by the end of the century the difference was much less marked. In Scotland 64% of females were given 2 or more names in 1975, rising to 75% in 2000.

Length and endings of names

There has been little change in the number of letters in female names between the Victorian period and 2001; 5.6 then and 5.7 now. Only 5% of names were 9 or 10 letters, the longest being Evangeline, Jacqueline and Clementine. Nearly half of the names ended with “a”, and a further 20% ended with “e”. 13% ended with other vowels including “y”, and the remaining 21% ended with a consonant.

Sources:

– 13th century – an analysis by Carroll-Clark (1997) of 4001/1407 men’s/women’s names from the Essex Feet of Fines, (land transactions 1182 – 1272).

– 17th century – period circa 1600 – 1720. Baptisms in parish registers of Beaconsfield (1675 – 1723), Whaddon (1586 – 1643 and 1671 – 1704), and Little Woolstone (1597 – 1720), all Bucks. Total sample 1682 (men) and 1588 (women).

– Late 18th century – period circa 1770 – 1812. Baptisms in parish registers of Beaconsfield (1778 – 1812) and Little Woolstone (1770 – 1813). Total sample 664/653.

– Data for Victorian period. Samples taken from FreeBMD database of civil registrations of births with surnames Hall, Green, Wright and Jackson, sample sizes 1838 2618/2636, 1853 2555/2423, 1868 2688/2645, 1883 2611/2629 and 1898 2717/2703 (men/women).

– Sample of 51568/52092 forenames of grooms and brides with surnames beginning with the letters Ha marrying 1867 – 1886.

– 20th century data – ONS. The ranking of the FreeBMD sample for 1898 is confirmed by the very close agreement with the ONS rankings for 1899.

– 2001, ONS data for the ± 1000 most frequent male and female forenames. The data has been adapted to deal with homonyms, diminutives and transcription errors (which reduced the number of names to 741/ 681). Because of lack of data from ONS assumptions have been made concerning the number of persons with names not featured in the first 1000, and for the frequency distribution of the names ranked 101 to 1037/1006. The first 100 names, for which exact data is available, accounted for 68/55% of all male/female births, before corrections, in 2001.

Donald Hatch 18 July 2002