Olivia and Muhammad Top England Baby Names List for 2025

Olivia and Muhammad Hold Onto the Top Spots in England’s 2025 Baby Names

Olivia and Muhammad were the most popular baby names in England in 2025, according to official data published this week by the UK’s Office for National Statistics and reported by BBC Newsround and Newsweek. The rankings are based on babies registered in England and Wales in 2024 and released annually.

Olivia was given to 2,386 babies born in England and Wales last year, retaining the number one spot among girls, the BBC reported. Lily and Amelia followed in second and third, each given to more than 2,000 babies. The full girls’ top 10 reads: Olivia, Lily, Amelia, Isla, Florence, Freya, Poppy, Elsie, Ivy and Isabella, according to Newsweek.

On the boys’ side, Muhammad held on to first place, ahead of Noah. Leo climbed two places to third, while Luca was the biggest mover in the top 10, rising four places to fourth, Newsweek reported, citing the ONS. The rest of the boys’ top 10: Arthur fifth, Oliver sixth, George seventh, Oscar eighth, Theodore ninth and Freddie tenth.

Where Names Are Rising and Falling in England

The BBC’s analysis of the ONS figures flags a small wave of fresh entries in the wider top 100. For girls, new additions to the list include Gracie, Marnie, Lilah and Frankie. The names that saw the largest jumps in popularity were Eliana, Anaya and Alba. By contrast, some previously common choices lost ground: Jessica and Ellie both fell in 2025, according to the BBC.

The Newsweek write-up noted no changes at the very top of the boys’ rankings, with Muhammad and Noah holding their positions. The volatility sits further down the list, where Leo, Luca, Arthur and Freddie each moved up or down by multiple places, indicating how quickly a single year of births can shuffle the middle of the table.

How England’s Top Names Compare to the US

The Newsweek comparison, drawing on data from the US Social Security Administration, found meaningful overlap between the two countries. Olivia tops both the English and American girls’ lists, while boys’ names such as Noah, Oliver, Theodore and Henry rank highly on both sides of the Atlantic, suggesting parents continue to favor names with biblical and historical roots.

The differences, Newsweek reported, are revealing. England’s list skews “vintage and nature-inspired,” with Florence, Elsie, Matilda, Phoebe, Poppy, Daisy, Lily and Ivy reflecting a long-running British fondness for botanical names and a streak of Nordic and mythological choices such as Freya. The US list leans more multicultural and internationally influenced, with Liam, James, Elijah, Mateo and Lucas prominent among boys and Charlotte, Emma, Eleanor, Harper, Elizabeth, Camila and Eliana prominent among girls.

Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland Show Their Own Patterns

The UK is not one monolithic naming market. In Scotland, Freya became the most popular girls’ name for the first time, while Noah remained the top boys’ name, Newsweek reported. Northern Ireland’s list was led by Grace and Noah, with Irish-language choices such as Fiadh, Aoife, Meabh and Oisin showing the strength of Gaelic heritage in the rankings.

Wales shared many of the wider UK trends, with Olivia and Noah topping the charts, but it also featured Welsh-language names including Mali, Ffion and Seren for girls, and Osian, Macsen and Dewi for boys. Together, the four UK lists show a mix of British-wide convergence on classics like Olivia and Noah and local divergence toward national-language and heritage choices.

Why it matters

Baby-name rankings are a low-stakes but unusually clear data point on cultural change. The ONS top 10 is built from millions of birth registrations, so shifts tend to track real demographic and cultural currents: the persistence of Muhammad at number one reflects England’s Muslim population share, which the UK’s 2021 census recorded at roughly 6.5% of the population. The strength of Welsh-language names in Wales and Gaelic names in Northern Ireland offers a similar window into minority-language use.

For American readers, the comparison has practical as well as cultural interest. Nursery product lines, monogrammed goods, children’s books and parenting websites all size their catalogs to popular names. If a name such as Florence, Elsie or Ivy is climbing in England, US retailers and naming sites often see parallel trends roughly a year or two later, since both countries draw on overlapping pools of celebrity, literary and royal influences. A name that is rising in England today may inform what sells in US baby goods tomorrow.

The bigger picture: what research says about names

Newsweek cited a 2022 review published in Current Psychology finding that names can shape first impressions and social expectations, with potential downstream effects on how people are treated throughout life. The article explicitly noted, however, that a name does not determine a child’s future. The point is not that Olivia or Muhammad is a “better” name, but that the data reflects the kinds of judgments, conscious or unconscious, that adults project onto children based on the sounds and associations of their names.

This year’s English list also reinforces a longer-running shift in Western baby naming toward what demographers sometimes call the “vintage revival” — older names such as Arthur, Florence, Elsie, Theodore and Theodore-era classics returning to the top of the charts after decades of decline. That pattern, visible in both the US and the UK, has been building for roughly 20 years and is now a defining feature of the rankings rather than a passing fad.

Where the reporting diverges and what remains unconfirmed

The two sources agree on the core data: the top names, the rank order and the year-over-year movements all line up between BBC Newsround and Newsweek. The main difference is emphasis. BBC Newsround highlights the granular movements inside the top 100, including new entrants like Gracie and Marnie and the names that dropped out of favor such as Jessica and Ellie. Newsweek focuses on the cross-Atlantic comparison and the regional UK breakdowns.

One factual point worth flagging: BBC Newsround refers to “babies born in England and Wales last year” while Newsweek describes the data as covering England only. The ONS does publish a combined England and Wales birth registration series, which is consistent with the BBC’s phrasing. Newsweek’s narrower framing is not contradicted by the data, but readers comparing the two articles should be aware that the underlying file technically includes Welsh births as well. The sources do not give a specific 2025 registration count for Muhammad equivalent to the 2,386 figure provided for Olivia, and Newsweek does not break out per-name totals beyond the top 10.

What to watch next

The next major naming data point for US readers will be the Social Security Administration’s annual release, expected later this year, which will show whether names such as Eliana and Mateo extend their climb and whether the English vintage revival crosses the Atlantic more visibly. For UK readers, the 2026 ONS release will reveal whether Muhammad extends its run at number one — it has now held the top spot for several consecutive years — and whether nature-themed girls’ names like Ivy, Poppy and Elsie continue their upward march. Tracking the gap between the English and US top 10s over the next two releases will be the clearest way to see whether Atlantic naming tastes are converging or diverging.