Parents are always looking for fresh baby name inspiration. Sometimes you find it close to home – from family, friends or your favourite TV and film characters – but sometimes it’s worth casting your net a little wider. Even across oceans.
Turns out baby names with strong European origins are hugely popular with parents in the UK right now. That’s according to data for babies born in 2020 from the Office for National Statistics, analysed by childrenswear brand La Coqueta Kids.
The latest data in baby naming might seem to go against the general Brexit tide, but researchers studied 180 names with French, German, Greek, Irish, Italian, Russian, Scandinavian, Scottish, and Spanish origins to see how often they popped up in the UK data.
Some of these names are so well established, you might not have known they had European roots. But below are the top 20 by popularity for boys and girls.
You can read the full list here, which contains some more unusual offerings too, including Margot, Maeve, Anastasia, Leonardo, Lorenzo, Xander and Beau.
10 baby girl names
Isabella (Italian) – 2052 babies born in 2020
Freya (Scandinavian) – 1,982
Ella (German) – 1,887
Charlotte (French) – 1,732
Evelyn (French) – 1,709
Sophie (Greek) – 1,525
Alice (German) – 1,432
Penelope (Greek) – 1,094
Chloe (French) – 980
Hallie (Scandinavian) – 954
10 baby boy names
Henry (German) – 2,868 babies born in 2020
Charlie (German) – 2,810
Finley (Irish) – 2,613
William (German) – 2,215
Max (French) – 1,585
Louis (French) – 1,186
Finn (Irish)) – 757
Charles (German) – 646
Leon (French) – 620
Austin (French) – 571