2025’s Most Popular Boys’ Names Have Just Dropped

Vincent and Ruben have entered the top 100 boys’ names for England and Wales, along with Stanley and Carter.

The Office for National Statistics’ (ONS) shared its latest baby name data for babies born in England and Wales in 2025.

The most popular name for boys overall is still Muhammad, which became the top boys’ name in 2023 and has remained in prime position since, followed by Noah and Leo.

In a similar way that “old lady” baby names continued to dominate in 2025 for girls, the boys list also features a variety of names that were popular 100 years ago, including Arthur, George, Oscar, Theodore, Henry and Harry.

There’s a reason this might be happening – and it’s what baby naming experts have dubbed the ‘100 year rule’.

“The 100 year rule holds that the style cycle of a name is about 100 years,” Sophie Kihm, editor-in-chief of the baby name resource Nameberry, told HuffPost previously.

“In general, new parents do not want to give their children names that sound dated. These include names strongly tied to their parents’ generation – today those would be 1960/70s names like Lisa, Susan, Jennifer, Jeffrey, Kevin and Brian – and their grandparents’ generation, 1940s names like Linda, Barbara, and Sharon, Ronald, Larry and Gary.”

She suggested parents are more likely to know many people with these names, and that can contribute to them feeling dated, but many of us don’t really have a connection to relatives who were alive 100 years ago.

Mair Garland, a baby naming celebrant, noted that monikers that were once nicknames are also trending and outstripping their originals.

She highlighted that we now have more boys called Tommy (at 28) than Thomas (at 42), while Freddie is 10th and Vinnie 58th, in comparison to Frederick (52) and Vincent (93).

For girls, nature-inspired names were also very popular – Lily, Willow, Ivy, Poppy and Daisy all made an appearance in the top 20.

1. Muhammad
2. Noah
3. Leo
4. Luca
5. Arthur
6. Oliver
7. George
8. Oscar
9. Theodore
10. Freddie
11. Archie
12. Theo
13. Henry
14. Jude
15. Arlo
16. Alfie
17. Rory
18. Finley
19. Harry
20. Mohammed
21. Albie
22. Charlie
23. Elijah
24. Jack
25. William
26. Adam
27. Roman
28. Louie
29. Reuben
30. Rowan
31. Edward
32. Lucas
33. Oakley
34. Teddy
35. Thomas
36. Isaac
37. Reggie
38. Ezra
39. Ronnie
40. Alexander
41. Jacob
42. James
43. Hudson
44. Tommy
45. Sonny
46. Hugo
47. Sebastian
48. Max
49. Louis
50. Harrison
51. Jesse
52. Frederick
53. Joshua
54. Ethan
55. Mohammad
56. Frankie
57. Albert
58. Vinnie
59. Felix
60. Joseph
61. Benjamin
62. Daniel
63. Jasper
64. Musa
65. Yusuf
66. Samuel
67. Myles
68. Liam
69. Elias
70. Ibrahim
71. Otis
72. Dylan
73. David
74. Finn
75. Zachary
76. Alfred
77. Mason
78. Kai
79. Rupert
80. Gabriel
81. Yahya
82. Caleb
83. Riley
84. Enzo
85. Michael
86. Austin
87. Logan
88. Jaxon
89. Toby
90. Milo
91. Hunter
92. Ellis
93. Vincent
94. Bobby
95. Elliot
96. Ralph
97. Carter
98. Stanley
99. Nathan
100. Ruben