UK baby names and births statistics

In the UK the most popular baby names and the headline birth figures come from the national statistics agencies: the ONS for England and Wales, National Records of Scotland, and NISRA for Northern Ireland. Olivia and Muhammad are the most popular girls' and boys' names in England and Wales, there are about 591,000 live births a year there, the average age of mothers is around 30.9, and the total fertility rate is about 1.44 children per woman. BabyData brings these headline figures together, each cited to its primary source and refreshed when that source updates.

Headline UK baby statistics

Figures are the latest published headline figures from each agency's release and are refreshed on release. Values are rounded. No figure here is estimated by BabyData: each comes from its named primary source.

Where these numbers come from

Baby-name popularity and counts for England and Wales come from the ONS Baby names in England and Wales dataset, published annually. Births, the birth rate and the average age of mothers come from ONS Births in England and Wales. Scotland's figures come from National Records of Scotland, and Northern Ireland's from the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA). Each agency publishes on its own schedule, so the latest figure for a given measure may be from a different reference year. BabyData cites the source for every number and updates the table when a new release lands.

For the interactive view of names over time and the underlying data assets, see the UK baby names and births data page. The same figures are also available, with their methods, through the data API and MCP server.