Baby names popular in the UK but rare in the US: the England and Wales names that don't cross the Atlantic
Published 9 November 2026, updated 10 November 2026
The rise of the -ie names in England and Wales
- Albie
- Freddie
- Reggie
- Vinnie
Show the numbers
| Year | Albie | Freddie | Reggie | Vinnie |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | #21 (1,702) | #10 (2,526) | #37 (1,312) | #58 (851) |
| 2020 | #35 (1,473) | #13 (2,797) | #48 (1,237) | #119 (472) |
| 2010 | #288 (158) | #45 (1,716) | #200 (264) | #223 (215) |
| 2000 | #624 (29) | #221 (138) | #624 (29) | #651 (28) |
England and Wales and the United States share a language and a lot of names. Olivia, Noah and Oliver are near the top of both 2025 lists. Some names, though, are everyday choices on one side of the Atlantic and almost unknown on the other.
To find them we compared the share of babies given each name in 2025, not the ranks. The 2025 US list covers about 3.3 million babies and the England and Wales list about 525,000, so raw counts would not be fair. Albie, for example, was given to about 1 in 160 boys in England and Wales and 1 in 65,000 in the US, which makes it about 400 times more common there, relative to births.
Boys: the “-ie” names
The clearest pattern is the short, friendly form ending in -ie or -y. In England and Wales these are registered as full names, while in the US they rarely are.
| Name | England and Wales, 2025 | US, 2025 |
|---|---|---|
| Albie | #21, 1,702 babies | 26 babies |
| Vinnie | #58, 851 babies | 15 babies |
| Alfie | #16, 1,955 babies | 72 babies |
| Freddie | #10, 2,526 babies | 116 babies |
| Reggie | #37, 1,312 babies | 85 babies |
| Ronnie | #39, 1,281 babies | 204 babies |
| Teddy | #34, 1,360 babies | 301 babies |
Most of these names reached the top in England and Wales recently. Albie was given to 29 babies there in 2000 and to over 1,700 in 2025. Reggie went from 29 to 1,312 over the same years, and Vinnie from 28 to 851, including a climb of 33 places in 2025 alone.
Three more boys’ names are over 15 times as common in England and Wales as in the US: Rupert (#79 there, 29 US babies), Harry (#19, against #775 in the US) and Reuben (#29, against #883).
Girls: Ottilie, Orla and Florence
| Name | England and Wales, 2025 | US, 2025 |
|---|---|---|
| Ottilie | #55, 782 babies | 57 babies |
| Darcie | #92, 513 babies | 43 babies |
| Orla | #64, 721 babies | 70 babies |
| Marnie | #97, 467 babies | 85 babies |
| Harriet | #59, 757 babies | 226 babies |
| Imogen | #69, 648 babies | 211 babies |
| Florence | #5, 1,924 babies | #391, 796 babies |
Ottilie has the biggest gap among the top 100 girls’ names: relative to births, it is about 87 times more common in England and Wales. It is also new there. Eighteen babies were named Ottilie in England and Wales in 2000.
Near the top of the list, the biggest gap is Florence: #5 in England and Wales, #391 in the US. Poppy (#7 against #292) and Matilda (#19 against #364) follow the same pattern.
The other way: American names England and Wales doesn’t use
For girls, the biggest gap in 2025 is a new name. Ailany was the #14 girls’ name in the US, given to 7,136 babies. In England and Wales it was given to 4. Its rise was fast: 311 US babies in 2023, 2,606 in 2024 and 7,136 in 2025.
Ailany in the US since 2005
- Ailany
Show the numbers
| Year | Ailany |
|---|---|
| 2025 | #14 (7,136) |
| 2020 | #1,830 (107) |
| 2010 | #4,974 (28) |
Several other US top-100 girls’ names barely appear in England and Wales. Camila is #19 in the US and was given to 32 babies in England and Wales. Claire (#68), Emery (#74) and Kennedy (#85) each had between 19 and 27, and Kinsley, #93 in the US, had 7.
For boys, the American list has a run of surname-style names that barely register in England and Wales:
| Name | US, 2025 | England and Wales, 2025 |
|---|---|---|
| Waylon | #56, 5,408 babies | 10 babies |
| Walker | #78, 4,204 babies | 9 babies |
| Bennett | #40, 6,268 babies | 18 babies |
| Weston | #55, 5,482 babies | 22 babies |
| Everett | #77, 4,287 babies | 24 babies |
| Brooks | #64, 4,877 babies | 66 babies |
Spanish-language names are a second group: Santiago (#26), Angel (#67), Gael (#86), Emiliano (#94) and Jose (#95). Each was given to between 18 and 21 babies in England and Wales, except Santiago with 153. The US records names without accents.
How we measured
Both lists are the official 2025 releases: the Social Security Administration for the US and the Office for National Statistics for England and Wales. The share of babies is the count for a name divided by all the babies of that sex in the published list for that year. We compared only names in one country’s top 100, so every name here is common in at least one of the two countries. Spellings are counted separately, as the official lists count them.
The US list leaves out names given to fewer than 5 babies, and England and Wales leaves out names given to fewer than 3, so “rare” here still means at least a handful of babies.
Scotland and Northern Ireland publish their own lists. Each name’s page shows its full history in every country: try Albie or Waylon.