What are the most popular baby names (male and female) in the history of Australia?
John and Margaret.
Between 1790 and 2011, nearly 262,000 baby boys were named John and nearly 96,500 baby girls were named Margaret. (I wish the article had mentioned the total number of baby boys and baby girls born during this period, so we could get an idea of proportion.)
The next-most-popular names were David and Sarah.
A total of 112,689 different names (46,230 male; 76,459 female) were chosen by Australians between 1790 and 2011. Of these, 82,335 (31,042 male; 51,293 female) were completely unique (i.e., used just once).
Source: Cornish, Lisa. “Aussie baby names: What’s your call?” News.com.au 25 Aug. 2012.
Image: Adapted from Koala at Amity Point (North Stradbroke Island) by S. Newrick under CC BY-SA 4.0.
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Sadly these 4 names make our culture seem very boring! It is rare to meet a Margaret or John born after 1970, but still the Davids and Sarahs appear in most age groups, although they are fairly rare now amongst the under 15 year olds. There are lots of Rileys, Tahlias, Taylors, Mayas, Blakes and increasing numbers of “made up” names, like kaneeshia, tahneesha, (and one of my past students, T-shirt, and her brother, Rugby!) It seems like in every primary school grade (5-12 years of age) there are Joshua, Nicholas, Xavier, and a fair swag of Harrys and Wills. Am expecting to see many more Katherines in the next few years, although there have been lots of Kates, Katelyns, and Katies for some years, and precious gems and botanical names are very big for boys and girls! Sadly there are also a fair swag of Jean-lucs, Leias, and other sci-fi characters. Have also heard a child being called “bilbo” in supermarket, and have met a Gandalf as well as an Ewock and two Wookies! Think I’ll stick with the nice, easy (!), traditional, old Irish names for my brood, and sturdy Germanic titles for my pack of Schnauzer dogs!
Elizabeth, thanks for all the great info!
(Were you serious about T-shirt, Ewok, Wookie, etc.? If so…wow. I don’t think I’ve ever come across those names in the U.S. before.)
I guessed John and Mary — and came close. I have Australian inlaws of Irish-English heritage. In the cousin generation — but 15 or so years apart in age — are both Seamus and Hamish.