Few given names used in England have English derivations. Many names are of
Hebrew (
Daniel,
David,
Elizabeth,
Susan) or
Greek (
Nicholas,
Dorothy,
George, and
Helen) origin. Some are
Germanic names, sometimes adopted via the transmission of
French (
Robert,
Richard,
Gertrude,
Charlotte) or originate from Indo-European (
Adrian,
Amelia,
Patrick) or Celtic. A small fraction of given names has an actual English derivation (see
Anglo-Saxon names), such as
Alfred,
Edgar,
Edmund,
Edward,
Edwin,
Harold and
Oswald. A distinctive feature of Anglophone names is the surnames of important families used as given names, originally to indicate political support or patronage. Many examples have now become normal names chosen because parents like them, and any political sense lost. Most are male names like Cecil, Gerald, Howard, Percy, Montague, Stanley or Gordon, though some have female versions like Cecilia or Geraldine. Other languages have few equivalents, although the saint's surname Xavier is often used by Roman Catholics. During the majority of the 19th century, the most popular given names were
Mary for girls and either
John or
William for boys. Throughout the Early Modern period, the diversity of given names was comparatively small; the three most popular male given names represented nearly 50% of the male population throughout this period. For example, of the boys born in London in the year 1510, 24.4% were named
John, 13.3% were named
Thomas and 11.7% were named William. A trend towards more diversity in given names began in the mid-19th century, and by 1900, only 22.9% of the newborn boys, and 16.2% of the newborn girls in the UK shared the top three given names for each gender. The trend continued during the 20th century, and by 1994, these figures had fallen to 11% and 8.6%, respectively. This trend is a result of a combination of greater
individualism in the choice of names, and the increasing
ethnic heterogeneity of the UK population, which led to a wider range of frequent given names from non-European traditions. Oliver and Olivia were the most popular baby names in England and Wales in 2018.
Forms of given names ==Surnames==