Popular and unique baby names in Scotland (UK), 2021

Flag of the United Kingdom
Flag of the United Kingdom

According to the National Records of Scotland (NRS), the most popular baby names in the country last year were Olivia and Jack.

Here are Scotland’s top 50 girl names and top 50 boy names of 2021:

Girl Names

  1. Olivia, 349 baby girls
  2. Emily, 318
  3. Isla, 317
  4. Freya, 270
  5. Ella, 259
  6. Amelia, 257
  7. Ava, 241
  8. Sophie, 238
  9. Grace, 235
  10. Millie, 216
  11. Lily, 205
  12. Sophia, 200
  13. Charlotte, 196
  14. Rosie, 190
  15. Aria, 183
  16. Evie, 181
  17. Maisie, 165
  18. Lucy, 164 (tie)
  19. Mia, 164 (tie)
  20. Eilidh, 160
  21. Ellie, 159 (3-way tie)
  22. Ivy, 159 (3-way tie)
  23. Orla, 159 (3-way tie)
  24. Jessica, 150
  25. Harper, 144
  26. Maya, 134 (tie)
  27. Willow, 134 (tie)
  28. Georgia, 126
  29. Daisy, 123 (tie)
  30. Sofia, 123 (tie)
  31. Mila, 122
  32. Isabella, 121 (tie)
  33. Ruby, 121 (tie)
  34. Hannah, 119
  35. Skye, 118
  36. Sienna, 116
  37. Molly, 113
  38. Hallie, 111
  39. Bonnie, 108 (tie)
  40. Poppy, 108 (tie)
  41. Eva, 106
  42. Esme, 104
  43. Anna, 102 (3-way tie)
  44. Ayla, 102 (3-way tie)
  45. Erin, 102 (3-way tie)
  46. Callie, 98
  47. Zara, 92
  48. Layla, 91
  49. Emma, 90 (tie)
  50. Robyn, 90 (tie)

Boy Names

  1. Jack, 382 baby boys
  2. Noah, 337
  3. Leo, 289
  4. Oliver, 284
  5. Harris, 273
  6. Finlay, 255
  7. Lewis, 254
  8. James, 252
  9. Rory, 247
  10. Alexander, 240
  11. Brodie, 236
  12. Alfie, 224
  13. Charlie, 220
  14. Theo, 219
  15. Archie, 217
  16. Lucas, 214
  17. Mason, 205
  18. Finn, 197
  19. Thomas, 193
  20. Freddie, 192
  21. Max, 190
  22. Logan, 187
  23. Harry, 181
  24. Jacob, 176
  25. Blake, 159 (tie)
  26. Luca, 159 (tie)
  27. Oscar, 157
  28. Jude, 155
  29. William, 146
  30. Caleb, 140
  31. Roman, 138
  32. Cameron, 136
  33. Jaxon, 133
  34. Adam, 131
  35. Joshua, 130
  36. Ollie, 129 (tie)
  37. Tommy, 129 (tie)
  38. Daniel, 125 (tie)
  39. Ethan, 125 (tie)
  40. Harrison, 124
  41. Luke, 122
  42. Arthur, 121
  43. Muhammad, 120
  44. Jamie, 118 (tie)
  45. Liam, 118 (tie)
  46. Reuben, 112
  47. Arlo, 110
  48. Grayson, 103 (3-way tie)
  49. Hunter, 103 (3-way tie)
  50. Kai, 103 (3-way tie)

The fastest-rising names in the girls’ top 100 were Lyla, Blake, and Rowan.

The fastest-rising names in the boys’ top 100 were Carson, Struan, and Myles.

Other names that have seen higher usage recently include Maeva (influenced by Made in Chelsea actress Maeva D’Ascanio) and Connell (influenced by Normal People character Connell Waldron).

And what about the unique names?

Almost 12% of baby girls were given a name that no other girl was registered with in 2021. Almost 9% of boys had unique names for births last year.

Baby names bestowed just once in Scotland last year include…

Unique Girl NamesUnique Boy Names
Arlo-Moon, Aquamarine, Boglarka, Bryar-Loch, Cleagh, Cocohuay, Dervla, Diadem, Ember-Willow, Estrid, Falluin, Floraidh, Ghillie, Gwenno, Hessa, Humna, Iolanthe, Ischia, Jahanara, Juaa, Ketaki, Knoxie, Linaz, Liola-Sky, Mharli-Mae, Myfanwy, Nardos, Nymeria, Ocean-Bleu, Otterly, Pannavee, Paris-Sarah, Quinnie, Ribhinn, Ruoyi, Salka, Stuti, Thyra, Tifa, Unsa, Velvetjane, Wilda, Xiylo, Ying, Zanna, ZarnishArziki, Athilan, Bligh, Bruar, Caladh, Ciurar, Domhnall, Doski, Eloim, Ezra’banx, Firth, Fury, Gilmar, Guyan, Hanzala, Harcus, Ieuan, Ivaylo, Jockie, Joris, Kairimui, Kallikrates, Linstrum, Lorenzo-Moon, Marric, Massinissa, Nakoah-Knox, Nimrod, Oputjo, Otter, Parnaj, Prokop, Quanders, Rascal, Rhue, Simanga, Somhairle, Torben, Trix, Uziah-Nova, Vakaris, Wrath, Xanthus, Yuveer, Zander-Blu, Zebedee

Here are possible explanations/associations for some of the above:

  • Diadem, a type of crown
  • Ischia, an island near Naples
  • Nymeria, a direwolf from Game of Thrones
  • Ribhinn, a Scottish-Gaelic word (rìbhinn) meaning “maiden, girl”
  • Tifa, a character from the Final Fantasy video games
  • Kallikrates, a 5th-century BC Greek architect
  • Masinissa, a 2nd-century BC Numidian king
  • Somhairle, a 12th-century Norse-Gaelic king

Finally, here are Scotland’s 2020 rankings, if you’d like to compare last year to the year before.

Sources: Babies’ First Names 2021 – National Records of Scotland, Trends in baby names 2021 (PDF)

Image: Adapted from Flag of the United Kingdom (public domain)

How did Virna Lisi influence baby names in the 1960s?

Italian actress Virna Lisi (1936-2014)
Virna Lisi

When Italian actress Virna Lisi started appearing in American films in the mid-1960s, American audiences took notice.

How do we know? Well, the baby name Lisi appeared in the U.S. baby name data for the first time in 1965, and, the same year, the baby name Virna re-emerged in the data (after a decades-long absence) with its highest-ever usage.

Girls named VirnaGirls named Lisi
196721.
1966115
196538†8*
1964..
1963..
*Debut, †Peak usage

(It should be noted, of course, that Lisa was the #1 baby name in the nation from 1962 to 1969. No doubt this made the similar — but much rarer — name Lisi sound rather stylish during that decade.)

Virna Lisi was born Virna Lisa Pieralisi in Ancona, Italy, in 1936.

Her father had wanted to call her Siria (“Syria”), but that country’s colonial ruler, France, was at loggerheads with Mussolini and the births registrar accordingly refused to accept the name. The exasperated Pieralisi then made up Virna on the spot.

She started acting as a teenager in Italy, and her success in Italian films eventually led to a brief Hollywood career. She appeared in How to Murder Your Wife (1965) with Jack Lemmon, Not With My Wife You Don’t (1966) with Tony Curtis, and Assault on a Queen (1966) with Frank Sinatra.

But Lisi disliked her “sex symbol” image in America. So she decided to leave. She turned down the lead role in Barbarella, terminated her Hollywood contract, and returned to Europe to play a wider range of characters.

What are your thoughts on the names Virna and Lisi? Which one would you be more likely to use on a modern-day baby?

P.S. Italian actress Anna Maria Pierangeli — better known as Pier Angeli — also had a surname that began with “Pier” (the Italian form of Peter).

Sources:

Image: Screenshot of How to Murder Your Wife

Baby name story: Poppet

Portrait of Poppet (cropped), painted circa 1935 by Augustus John.
Poppet John

Welsh painter Augustus John and his second wife, Dorothy (called “Dorelia”), welcomed a daughter in 1912.

They’d planned to name the baby Elizabeth Anne, but they ended up calling her Poppet. (The British English term poppet is used to refer to “a person, especially a child, that you like or love.”)

Here’s how Poppet’s older bother Romilly (b. 1906) recalled the naming process:

I remember a grand discussion in the walled-in summer-house about what she should be called — a discussion which has been going on ever since. Elizabeth Anne was the provisional choice on that occasion, but it satisfied nobody, and the baby was finally registered as ‘one female child’, pending the discovery of the ideal name. Meanwhile [half-brother] Caspar, contemplating her one day, chanced to remark: ‘What a little poppet it is!’ — and Poppet she was called from that day forward. A real name was still intended to be found for her, but we had not reckoned with the force of habit, and, in spite of intermittent consultation, and at least one attempt to revert to the original suggestion, Anne, she has continued [to be called] Poppet to this day.

I can’t find Poppet’s birth registration online, but “Poppet” is indeed the name used legally in the Marriage Registration Index (three times: 1931, 1940, and 1952) and the the Death Registration Index (1997).

Poppet’s third and final marriage was to dutch artist Willem Pol, making fashion model Talitha Pol her step-daughter. After Talitha’s death in 1971, Poppet and Willem raised Talita’s son Tara at their home in the south of France.

Sources:

P.S. Caspar John (b. 1903) ended up becoming the head of the Royal Navy in the early 1960s.

Popular baby names in Peru, 2020

Flag of Peru
Flag of Peru

According to Peru’s National Registry of Identification and Civil Status (RENIEC), the most popular baby names in the country last year were Mia and Liam.

Peru released a single set of rankings that combined both genders, so here are Peru’s top 20 baby names overall for 2020:

  1. Liam, 4,179 babies
  2. Thiago, 3,398
  3. Dylan, 3,150
  4. Mia, 2,510
  5. Gael, 2,484
  6. Camila, 1,929
  7. Alessia, 1,856
  8. Luciana, 1,838
  9. Mateo, 1,837
  10. Zoe, 1,530
  11. Ian, 1,458
  12. Luis, 1,374
  13. Valentina, 1,335
  14. Aitana, 1,298
  15. Danna, 1,295
  16. Lucas, 1,248 (tie)
  17. Santiago, 1,248 (tie)
  18. Luana, 1,239
  19. Juan, 1,228
  20. Ariana, 1,213

I haven’t been able to track down Peru’s rankings for 2019, but in 2018 the top two names were the same.

RENIEC regularly tweets about Peru’s unusual baby names, so I can also tell you that, within the last few years, the country has welcomed babies named…

  • Lapadula (15 babies) + Gianluca Lapadula (4)
  • Peter Parker (5) + Spiderman (1)
  • Gareca (3)
    • after former Argentine soccer player Ricardo Gareca, who now manages Peru’s national team
  • Mark Zuckerberg (2)
  • Bo-derek (1) + Boderek (1)
  • Bad Bunny
  • Beethovena
  • Gremlins
  • Kardasham
  • Neilamstrong
  • Netflix
  • Philcollins
  • Pringles
  • Rafael Nadal

Finally, Peru has put together several cool online booklets (PDFs) highlighting the names and naming practices of various indigenous groups within the country, so here’s a sampling of names from each of the booklets…

  • Aimara names:
    • Amuyiri, “thinker”
    • Iqilla, “flower”
    • Phuyo, “bird feather”
    • Qhispi, “quartz, rock crystal, transparent object, mirror”
    • Thalutari, “calming, lulling”
  • Asháninkas names:
    • Chabaka, species of toucan
    • Kamore, “galaxy, milky way”
    • Manchori, “herbalist”
    • Sabaro, species of parrot
    • Yonamine, “act of looking at you”
  • Awajún names:
    • Esámat, “heal the wound”
    • Nanchíjam, “little bird that eats rice”
    • Púmpuk, owl species
    • Tíi, “hard as stone” (implies stoicism)
    • Úum, “blowgun”
  • Jaqaru names:
    • Kukiri, “pigeon, dove”
    • Nup’i, “the heat that is received from the sun’s rays”
    • Pajshi, “moon”
    • Qajsiri, “waterfall”
    • Waraja, “star”
  • Matsés names:
    • Badi
    • Chidopiu
    • Didu
    • Mëbu
    • Tamu
  • Quechua names:
    • Liwyaq, “lightning”
    • Qullqi, gold or silver metal
    • Waqra, “horn”
    • Willka, “sun”
    • Yaku, “water”
  • Shipibo-Konibo names:
    • Biri, “dazzling”
    • Kesin, “strip; fine and transparent banana fiber”
    • Panshin, “yellow”
    • Xeka, “vanilla”
    • Wasan, “puffin”
  • Wampís names:
    • Apaape, “elusive”
    • Chunchumanch, “snail”
    • Dekentai, “bruise” (implies strength)
    • Mamainkur, “yucca flower”
    • Pamau, “tapir”

Sources:

Image: Adapted from Flag of Peru (public domain)