Named

It’s that time of year when the list of names of babies born over the last year has been published, which is interesting to see which names are the most popular, which are becoming less popular and those which have dropped out of the top 100. I’ve mentioned many times before that such things interest me because my name is relatively unusual, is often mispronounced and mis-spelled, and I’ve only come across another couple of people who have it, none of whom I knew, only knew of. My daughter’s best friend has it as a middle name, but that’s it. I was named after my great-grandma, and my aunty had it as a middle name.

So the top ten of girls names this year are:

Olivia

Lily

Amelia

Isla

Florence

Freya

Poppy

Elsie

Ivy

Isabella

New names on the list are: Gracie, Marnie, Lilah and Frankie, and names becoming increasingly popular are Eliana, Anaya and Alba.

The top boys’ names are:

Muhammad

Noah

Leo

Luca

Arthur

Oliver

George

Oscar

Theodore

Freddie

Names rising in popularity are Vinnie and Ruben, and new names on the list are Carter and Stanley.

Now I have always been interested in names, as I mentioned earlier, but names are important to me from a writing point of view. I take great care with choosing my names, although some spring unexpectedly from goodness knows where. One thing I recently realised is that the name David features in many of my books, although rarely except in “Flipside” is a main character called that. However, in my Radwinter stories, a David appeared as a walk-on, but has now become much more important, and a very close friend of Thomas Radwinter in my Radwinter series. My next Radwinter, “Something or Nothing” is almost ready to be launched… almost!

My featured image is of my little lucky Mojo!