Frequency of First Names

With over fifty thousand personal names registered in the Society’s armorial database, it comes as no surprise that a number of name elements are reused numerous times, while others are rare or unique.

I recently looked at the frequency of name elements by their position in a name, which allowed me to pull together the below list of the one hundred most common first names.

William	426
Robert	341
Michael	270
Thomas	264
John	258
James	242
Elizabeth	238
Richard	219
Anne	198
Morgan	171
Katherine	159
Anna	154
Edward	152
David	147
Duncan	137
Geoffrey	136
Catherine	135
Wilhelm	128
Alexander	114
Isabella	113
Eleanor	109
Ian	108
Brian	106
Margaret	106
Sorcha	100
Angus	100
Jean	99
Cassandra	98
Charles	98
Juliana	97
Elspeth	96
Marcus	96
Sean	95
Eric	94
Daniel	94
Genevieve	91
Mary	91
Maria	89
Rhiannon	86
Stephen	85
Andrew	84
Bjorn	83
Magnus	83
Elena	83
Karl	83
Emma	81
Isabel	81
Gareth	79
Deirdre	78
Marie	78
Anastasia	75
Christopher	75
Rose	73
Edmund	70
Katerina	68
Robin	68
Seamus	68
Ulrich	68
Tristan	66
Alaric	66
Alexandra	66
Colin	65
Simon	64
Caitlin	63
Isabeau	63
Gabriel	62
Johannes	62
Alessandra	62
Arthur	61
Dafydd	61
Diana	61
Fiona	61
Helena	61
Sarah	61
Sebastian	61
Martin	61
Connor	60
Roland	60
Francesca	59
Erik	58
Guillaume	58
Wolfgang	58
Rowan	57
Eoin	57
Johann	57
Áine	56
Giovanni	55
Magdalena	55
Gavin	54
Vladimir	53
Bran	53
Constance	53
Galen	52
Konrad	52
Malcolm	52
Owen	52
Gabrielle	51
Gillian	51
Gwyneth	51
Ivan	51

(Note that “first names” are not synonymous with “given names,” both because of the pattern seen in some languages of double given names, and because of the differing word order found in East Asian names where the personal given name often appears after the inherited family name or other bynames.)