British Baby Names
When I lived in London in the 90s, I was gobsmacked (astonished in British) by how different the baby names were there. It wasn’t like they used names Americans had never heard of – exotic ones like Pema or invented ones like Puma – but that they used some of the familiar English names far more often than did parents in the U.S.
Clementine and Hugo, for instance, were the most fashionable names of that day in the U.K., names I’d rarely heard stateside. Clementine was pronounced with an –een ending, which removed it from the “Oh My Darling” association – not that many Brits carried that association.
Some of the names popular in Britain and not in the U.S. are similarly free of connections that may damn them in America: Jemima, say, and Archie. Others are old Celtic or Cornish or Welsh names that never crossed the ocean, such as Tamsin and Callum.
And then there are those names on this list that are classics or short forms heard in America, but not as fashionably – I’m thinking of Forence, for example, and Freddie, Lucy (yes, still) and Louis.
Based on another entertaining tour through the London Telegraph birth announcements from the past few months, here are some names that are stylish in the U.K. right now.
Girls
ALICE
CECILY
CHARIS or CARYS
CRESSIDA
DARCY or DARCEY
DAVINA
EDIE
ELIZA
FLORA
FLORENCE
FREYA
GENEVIEVE
GEORGIANA or GEORGINA
IMOGEN
JEMIMA
LUCY
MAISIE
NATASHA
OCTAVIA
POPPY
PRIMROSE
TABITHA
TAMSIN
VERITY
ZARA
Boys
ALASTAIR
ANGUS
ARCHIE
ARTHUR
BARNABY
BENEDICT
BYRON
CALLUM
CATHAN
COSMO
DIGBY
DOMINIC
EWAN
FELIX
FERGUS
FLETCHER
FREDERICK or FREDDIE
GEORGE
HARRY
HARVEY
HORATIO
HUW
IVOR
LACHLAN
LOUIS
OLIVER
OSCAR
OTTO
RANULPH
RHYS
ROCCO
ROLLO
RORY
RUPERT
SEBASTIAN
THOMAS
TOBIAS or TOBY
WALTER