The top 50 girls' names in England and Wales, 2025

These are the official figures published by the Office for National Statistics on 9 July 2026, covering babies registered in England and Wales during 2025. The counts are exact — this is a census of birth registrations, not a survey or an estimate.

One thing to be clear about before the table: ONS covers England and Wales only. Scotland's figures come from National Records of Scotland and Northern Ireland's from NISRA, and both publish separately. There is no single UK-wide list — and the answers genuinely differ. NRS published Scotland's 2025 figures on 26 May 2026, and there Freya was the most popular girls' name for the first time, displacing Olivia.

Rank	Name	Babies	Meaning and origin
1	Olivia	2,386	Olive tree; Latin, popularised in English by Shakespeare
2	Lily	2,249	The flower; Latin lilium
3	Amelia	2,153	Work; Germanic amal — often confused with Latin Aemilia
4	Isla	1,959	Scottish, from the island of Islay or the River Isla
5	Florence	1,924	Blossoming; Latin florens
6	Freya	1,802	Lady; Old Norse, the goddess Freyja
7	Poppy	1,789	The flower; Old English popæg
8	Elsie	1,700	Scots short form of Elspeth or Elizabeth
9	Ivy	1,698	The plant; Old English ifig
10	Isabella	1,690	Italian form of Elizabeth, "my God is an oath"
11	Ava	1,611	Disputed — Germanic, or a form of Eve, or Latin avis
12	Evelyn	1,560	From a Norman surname, itself from Aveline
13	Sophia	1,547	Wisdom; Greek
14	Phoebe	1,542	Bright, radiant; Greek
15	Sienna	1,530	The Italian city, and the reddish-brown pigment named after it
16	Mabel	1,527	Lovable; Latin amabilis
17	Sofia	1,490	Wisdom; the continental spelling of Sophia
18	Daisy	1,454	"Day's eye"; Old English
19	Matilda	1,449	Strength in battle; Germanic
20	Willow	1,384	The tree; Old English welig
21	Mia	1,372	"Mine" in Italian and Spanish; also a short form of Maria
22	Arabella	1,368	Disputed — possibly Latin orabilis, or a form of Annabel
23	Harper	1,367	Harp player; occupational surname
24	Rosie	1,343	Diminutive of Rose; Latin rosa
25	Charlotte	1,339	Free man; French feminine form of Charles
26	Maeve	1,330	Irish Medb, roughly "she who intoxicates"
27	Grace	1,309	Grace; Latin gratia
28	Maya	1,259	Several unrelated origins — Sanskrit, Hebrew and Greek
29	Hallie	1,246	Disputed — from the surname Hall, or a diminutive of Harriet
30	Margot	1,230	Pearl; French diminutive of Marguerite
31	Lottie	1,222	Diminutive of Charlotte
32	Delilah	1,180	Disputed — Hebrew, often given as "delicate"
33	Penelope	1,174	Greek, possibly from pēnē, "thread" — uncertain
34	Aria	1,132	Melody (Italian); also Hebrew and Persian names of separate origin
35	Evie	1,129	Diminutive of Eve or Evelyn
36	Millie	1,080	Diminutive of Amelia or Millicent
37	Violet	1,061	The flower; Latin viola
38	Ruby	1,032	The red gemstone; Latin rubeus
39	Aurora	1,030	Dawn; Latin, and the Roman goddess
=40	Ada	1,014	Noble; Germanic
=40	Mila	1,014	Gracious, dear; Slavic mil
42	Ayla	980	Turkish, "halo of moonlight"; also a Hebrew name meaning "oak"
43	Maisie	966	Pearl; Scots diminutive of Màiri or Mairead
44	Emily	956	Rival; Latin Aemilia
45	Esme	933	Esteemed, beloved; Old French
46	Ella	932	Disputed — Germanic, or a short form of Eleanor
47	Olive	892	The tree and fruit; Latin oliva
48	Bonnie	882	Pretty; Scots, from French bonne
49	Elodie	849	French, from the Visigothic name Alodia; meaning uncertain
50	Layla	833	Night; Arabic

What the 2025 data actually shows

Olivia held, but only just

Olivia has been the number one girls' name in England and Wales for years, and 2025 did not change that — its rank change since 2024 was zero. But the gap at the top is narrow. Lily moved up one place to second and Amelia dropped one to third, and the three names are separated by only 233 registrations out of more than 280,000 girls. This is not a chart with a dominant name at the top. Compare it with the boys' list, where the number one name outnumbers the number two by nearly half again.

The names that climbed hardest

Working from the ONS workbook's own change-in-rank column, the biggest movers inside the top 100 were Eliana, up 54 places to 62nd, then Anaya and Alba, both up 24. Mabel rose 21 places to 16th, which is the most consequential of these because it is a genuine top-20 arrival. Gracie was up 19, Lilah 17, and Ottilie and Marnie both 16.

Seven names entered the top 100 for the first time relative to 2024: Eliana, Gracie, Anaya, Alba, Marnie, Lilah and Frankie.

The names that fell hardest

Bonnie fell 32 places, the single sharpest drop in the top 100, and still finished 48th. Eden was down 20, Chloe 17, Emma 16, Bella 15 and Scarlett 14. Maya and Sophie each lost 13 places. The pattern is worth noting: the fallers are largely names that peaked in the 2000s and 2010s, while the risers are older-sounding revivals.

The ten-year view is more revealing than the one-year view

ONS also publishes change since 2015, and that column shows the real structural shift. Maeve has risen 596 places in a decade. Nova is up 462, Raya 419, Ottilie 357, Athena 248 and Margot 241. A name moving three or four places in a year is noise; a name moving several hundred places in a decade is a change in taste.

Where you live changes the answer

Olivia is not the top name everywhere. ONS regional tables show Sofia at number one in London, ahead of Olivia. Florence tops the South West. Lily tops the North West and West Midlands, and Amelia tops Yorkshire and The Humber and the East of England. In Wales, Olivia leads, but the Welsh-language name Mali ranks fourth — against 1,118th in England. That single comparison tells you more about naming in Britain than any national top ten.

Mother's age matters too. In the ONS breakdown the most popular girls' name is Delilah for mothers under 25, Amelia for 25 to 29, Lily for 30 to 34, and Olivia for 35 and over.

How to use this list

Read the counts, not just the ranks. Even the number one name went to 2,386 babies out of roughly 285,000 girls — well under one per cent. "Most popular" in modern Britain does not mean common in the way it did in 1965. Your daughter is unlikely to share her name with anyone else in her class even if you choose from the top ten.

Remember that ONS counts exact spellings separately. The ONS workbook states it plainly: the rankings use the exact spelling given at birth registration, and similar names with different spellings are counted separately. Sophia at 13th and Sofia at 17th are the same name to the ear. Added together they would sit comfortably inside the top five. If you are choosing a name partly to avoid a common one, combine the variants before you judge.

Finally, ONS suppresses any name given to two or fewer babies for confidentiality, and excludes registrations where no name was recorded. So the tail of the distribution is genuinely longer than the published data can show.

Most Popular Baby Girl Names in the UK (ONS 2025)