Pop culture influences baby names more than politicians from Khaleesi to Arya

Farage, we're looking at you

Olivia Petter
Thursday 21 September 2017 10:39 BST
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It’s official: nobody wanted to call their kid Nigel in 2016.

The Office for National Statistics has released a list of the most popular baby names in England and Wales from last year - and it transpires that less than three Nigels came into the world last year.

Despite the fact that Nigel Farage was on the TV for most of the year in the run up to the Brexit vote, even he couldn't resurrect the name to its former glory.

Weird, right?

Whilst a lot of the names featured seem to be influenced by popular culture, with character names from Game of Thrones making an appearance, the opposite could be said for other major politicians, whose names seem to have decreased in popularity in the last 10 years.

Oliver and Olivia came out on top, whereas Nigel was nowhere to be found.

Other notable political name droppers - so to speak - whose names were far less popular in 2016 compared to how they rated in 1996 included Theresa, Jeremy and Michael.

However, it’s not the case for all politicians.

Whilst there were just five baby Borises in 1996, there were 39 in 2016. Equally, there were 14 Vinces in 2016 in comparison to less than three who were born in 1996.

When it comes to baby names, it seems that popular culture has a bigger impact than politics.

Popular girls' names such as Emily, Lily and Ruby can all be traced back to famous faces: Emily Blunt, Lily Cole, Ruby Rose?

Likewise with the most popular boys’ names, which included Harry, George and William.

The Royals might have had something to do with those ones.

New names to emerge on this year’s included some avant-garde choices such as Luna, Iris and Lydia.

Luna as in Lovegood, perhaps?

Then there are the rogue Game of Thrones inspired names - apparently 69 children have been named Khaleesi after Emilia Clarke’s character, whilst 21 baby boys were named Arya.

Fascinatingly, nine perplexing individuals included in the survey decided to call their son Donald last year.

However, that’s less than the 23 who did so in 1996 which is a bit of a relief, seeing as the last thing the world needs right now is another Donald.

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