- published: 14 Apr 2015
- views: 270823
English names are names used in England. In England as elsewhere in the Anglosphere, a complete name usually consists of a given name, commonly referred to as a first name, a second given name, commonly called a middle name, and a family name or surname, also referred to as a last name.
Most given names used in England do not have English etymology. Most traditional names are Latin or Romance, Christian or Biblical names (Greek or Hebrew), or Germanic names adopted via the transmission of Old French, such as Robert, Richard, Henry or William. There remains a limited set of given names which have an actual English etymology (see Anglo-Saxon names); examples include Alfred, Edgar, Edmund, Edwin, Harold and Oswald.
During most of the 19th century, the most popular given names were Mary and either John or William for girls and boys, respectively. Throughout the Early Modern period, the variation of given names was comparatively small; the three most frequent male given names accounted for close to 50% of male population throughout this period. For example, of the boys born in London in the year 1510, 24.4% were named John, 13.3% were named Thomas and 11.7% were named William. A trend towards more diversity in given names began in the mid 19th century, and by 1900, 22.9% of the newborn boys, and 16.2% of the newborn girls in the UK shared the top three given names. The trend continued during the 20th century, and by 1994, these figures had fallen to 11% and 8.6%, respectively. This trend is a result of a combination of greater individualism in the choice of names, and the increasing ethnic heterogeneity of UK population, which led to a wider range of frequent given names from non-European traditions.