According to the Oxfordshire County Council, the most popular baby names in Oxfordshire, England, in 2017 were Lily and Oliver.
Here are Oxfordshire’s top 10 girl names and top 10 boy names of 2017:
Girl Names
1. Lily
2. Olivia
3. Amelia
4. Poppy
5. Isla
6. Ava
7. Emily
8. Evie
9. Florence
10. Isabella
Boy Names
1. Oliver
2. George
3. Harry
4. Jack
5. Arthur
6. Alfie
7. Oscar
8. Jacob
9. Muhammed
10. Benjamin
In the girls’ top 10, Poppy and Florence replaced Sophia and Sophie.
In the boys’ top 10, most of the names are new: Arthur, Alfie, Oscar, Jacob, Muhammed, and Benjamin replaced Henry, Joshua, Thomas, William, Samuel, and James.
Alicja Gilroy, Superintendent Registrar, also made note of two recent trends: using hyphenated first names, and using “names that would once have been nick names from a longer name: Charlie, Albie, Archie, Ollie, Bobby, Reggie, Teddy, Vinnie, Ronnie, Freddie, Pippa, Maggie, Rosie, Ellie, Tilly are a few of the more popular ones.”
In 2016, the top two names in Oxfordshire were Lily and Jack.
Sources: Oliver and Lily top the list of Oxfordshire most popular baby names in 2017, Most popular baby names for Oxfordshire in 2017
Interesting that the #2 & #3 names for boys are both names of prominent members of the royal family but there aren’t really any similar results for the girls.
I suppose you could make a case for Isla, but I’m not sure that Isla Phillips has a high enough profile to be the influence.
Good observation. I imagine there are pockets of England that are either pro or con the royal family (or the monarchy in general). I wonder where those spots might be, and whether we can see the bias in their baby names…