Top 10 baby names revealed – and it’s bad news for Prince Harry and Meghan

Harry has fallen out of the top 10 baby names for the first time in nearly 20 years, new data show.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has released its latest baby name data, revealing the most popular – and unpopular – names in the UK.

Among those to have fallen out of favour include Harry, Henry, Meghan and Archie.

Harry has been in the top 10 consistently since 2004, when it was ranked in 11th place. However, the latest data show that in 2022 it dropped out of favour and ranked in 15th place.

Noah was the most popular name for boys for the second year in a row, after replacing Oliver in 2021, which is now in fourth place behind Muhammad and George.

James Tucker, head of health analysis at the ONS, said Olivia has been the most popular girls’ name since 2016, with Amelia and Isla unchanged from their spots at second and third place since 2021. Olivia has consistently made the top three since 2006, and was the top girls’ name for every English region and Wales in 2022, except for London where Amelia was the most popular.

The only new entry into the top 10 for girls’ names is Isabella. Theodore, Theo and Freddie are three new entries for the top 10 boys’ names, replacing Harry, Archie, and Henry.

Harry is one of a handful of names which has been in the top 100 consistently since 1904. However, it has declined by 46.7 per cent since 2018, from 5,031 to 2,403. This was just ahead of the decline of William, which is down by 40.1 per cent, from 3,015 to 1,806. Its ranking at number 15 is the lowest it has been recorded since 1998.

Boys named Archie declined from 3,990 to 2,403 between 2021 and 2022, while those named Henry fell from 2,912 to 2,624.

And despite an initial boost in popularity in the name Meghan following the engagement of Prince Harry to Meghan Markle, it now marks the second biggest decline in names for baby girls, down 83 per cent, from 101 babies to 17.

Combined with the other spelling of Meghan – Megan – this has fallen from 644 to 143 since 2018.

In 2018, the year following the engagement of the Prince and former Suits actress, now the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, the number of women named Meghan more than doubled, increasing from 49 to 101.

Elizabeth is the only girls’ name to feature in the top 100 every year. Charles dropped out of the top 100 this year.

Analysis by The Telegraph has also found that for girls’ names, the biggest declines have been Alexa, which has dropped by 91 per cent since 2018 amid the rise of Amazon’s virtual assistant.

Ottilie and Ophelia are the biggest movers, up 35 places to make it into the top 100 for the first time. Fatima and Nova are also new to the top 100, and Eloise has made a re-entry into the list, having last been seen in 2006. However, in another royal blow, Beatrice, left the top 100 for 2022, as well as Anna, Amber, Holly and Heidi.

The ONS also published data on birth characteristics for 2022 on Friday showing that the percentage of full-term live births with low birthweight (under 2.5kg) has increased to 2.9 per cent from 2.6 per cent in 2021, in England and Wales; this proportion increased across all English regions.

Data also show that babies from the black ethnic group continued to have the highest stillbirth rate at 6.5 per 1,000 births, compared with 3.5 for the white ethnic group.

Analysis also shows that names at risk of going extinct include Claude, Clifford, Barry, and Clive, having fallen from the top 100 in the past 120 years but now rank 4,000th or lower.

The name Nigel officially became extinct in 2022, with no babies (or fewer than three for identity protection reasons) given the name in that year. This is the second time since 2016 this has happened. The name had previously peaked in 1964 as the 23rd most popular name.

Meanwhile, the names Horace, Leslie, Melvyn, Glenn, Graeme and Iain join Nigel in having previously been in the top 100 but now rank a statistical zero.

The name Donald peaked in popularity in 1934, when it ranked 18th, and is now at 1,879th, with just 12 people given the name last year. However, this is up from just four in 2020 when Donald Trump, the former US president, failed to secure a second term.

In terms of girls’ names, Bertha, Muriel, Gertrude, Phyllis, Gladys, Fanny, Jill, Annette, Brenda and Linda are among the many female names that have fallen out of favour and below 4,000th in the ranking.

In the 1980s, four different spellings of Lindsey (Lynsey, Lyndsey, Lindsay and Lindsey) were in the top 100. In 2022, just three baby girls were named Lindsey.

Meanwhile, Karen, which drastically declined in popularity in recent years as a result of a social media stereotype, was given to just four baby girls in 2022.