- Baby talk - 12th May 2025
- Low on charge… - 11th May 2025
- Tongue tied! - 9th May 2025
During 23 years with the BBC, and a 41 year journalistic career (when he was trained to use clear and simple language, avoiding jargon), our Editor, Welshman Phil Parry, has always tried to keep up with the latest trends, and this is now emphasised by fresh research about new baby names and what they tell us about changes in society.
It may sound absurd, but they tell us a lot – baby names.
Every parent knows that living namesakes matter as much as past ones.
In America ‘Donald’ is a less popular choice than it was in 2010, given to just 414 children in 2023.
As Taylor Swift has climbed the music charts, her first name has slid down the rankings, perhaps because parents fear their children will feel eclipsed by the star.
When it comes to traits, parents increasingly care about appearances. Surprisingly perhaps, brains are becoming less fashionable for children, names associated with cleverness—such as Raynard—are down six percentage points from 2000, yet names associated with beauty have become more popular in recent decades.
Almost 30 per cent of names in England and Wales bear a connotation with beauty; over 30 per cent of names in America do, too, up 3.2 percentage points from 200.
In Wales there is the added complication of whether or not to choose a Welsh language name for your baby, how popular it is, and what, if anything, that may signify.
These, too, are changing all the time as society alters, but at the moment the top 10 girls’ names (depending on where you look) are:
- Carys – meaning ‘to love.’
- Angharad – meaning ‘much loved.’
- Megan – meaning ‘pearl.’
- Nia – meaning ‘bright.’
- Erin – inspired by the Welsh name for Ireland.
- Alys – the Welsh variation of the English name Alice meaning ‘noble.’
- Mali – meaning ‘wished-for child.’
- Sian – meaning ‘God is gracious.’
- Bronwen – meaning ‘pure-breasted’ and ‘white.’
- Elin – meaning ‘bright.’
The boys’ names are:
- Dylan – meaning ‘son of the sea.’
- Elis or Ellis – meaning ‘kind’ and ‘benevolent.’
- Evan or Ifan – meaning ‘the Lord is gracious’.
- Rhys – meaning ‘ardent’ and ‘enthusiastic.’
- Hayden – meaning ‘fire’ and originating from the Celtic name ‘Aiden’.
- Flynn – meaning ‘son of the red-haired one.’
- Caiden – meaning ‘spirit of battle.’
- Morgan – meaning ‘circling sea’ or ‘sea born.’
- Owain or Owen – meaning ‘well-born’ and ‘young warrior.’
- Arthur – from the Welsh for ‘bear.’
Yet apart from where you look, these monikers alter almost weekly, and that explains a lot..!
The memories of Phil’s astonishing, decades long award-winning career in journalism (when baby names were rarely considered, but perhaps should have been) as he was gripped by the neurological disabling condition Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia (HSP), have been released in the book ‘A Good Story’. Order it now.
Tomorrow – how a campaigner’s warning that the UK Government could be sued over the huge Post Office (PO) Horizon scandal, has once again thrown the spotlight on the central role of Wales.
