The data behind Nameling
Every figure on Nameling comes from the official birth records of the UK and the US. This page says what's in them, how Nameling works its figures out, and where to download them. Last updated 20 October 2026.
The records
- England and Wales: Office for National Statistics, 1996 to 2025. Names given to 3 or more babies of a sex.
- Scotland: National Records of Scotland, 1974 to 2025. Every name until 2023; names given to 3 or more babies from 2024.
- Northern Ireland: Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency, 1997 to 2025. Names given to 3 or more babies of a sex.
- The US: US Social Security Administration, 1880 to 2025. Names given to 5 or more babies of a sex.
The UK figures count babies by the year their births were registered, and start in 1996, the first year of the England and Wales lists. The US figures count babies born in the US, from applications for their Social Security cards.
How Nameling works out its figures
- The UK figures add the three nations' counts together, spelling by spelling. Nameling works out the ranks from those totals; names given to the same number of babies share a rank.
- Each spelling is a separate name in the official lists, so Sophia and Sofia are ranked apart. The trends pages also count spellings that sound the same together, comparing how the names are said. In 2025, for example, Sophia is 12th among girls on its own and first with its other spellings counted in.
- A name's five-year trend compares the average number of babies given it over the last three years with the average five to seven years earlier, so one unusual year doesn't swing it.
- “Same name in a class” is the chance that, among 15 girls or 15 boys born the same year, at least one of the other 14 has the name too.
- The publishers leave out names given to very few babies, to protect families' privacy, so a name missing from a year may still have been given.
- Entries that stand in for a name, such as “Unknown” or “Baby”, used when a birth is registered before the baby is named, are left out.
Meanings and origins
Meanings credited to Wiktionary come from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0), and link to their entries. The rest are short notes Nameling wrote with the help of AI. They can be wrong, so check anything that matters to you, and tell us if you spot a mistake.
Download the data
- UK baby names, 1996–2025 A CSV file in a zip, 2.7 MB, with one row for each name, sex and year: name, sex, year, england_wales, scotland, northern_ireland, uk_total and uk_rank. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
- US baby names, 1880–2025 A CSV file in a zip, 12.1 MB, with one row for each name, sex and year: name, sex, year, count and us_rank. A work of the US government, in the public domain.
If you use these figures, please credit the publishers of the records, and Nameling for the ranks and totals.
Citing Nameling
For one name, cite its page: each one ends with a line to copy. For the data: Nameling, “UK baby names, 1996–2025” or “US baby names, 1880–2025”, https://www.nameling.co.uk/names/data, updated 20 October 2026.