What are your parents’ names?

It can be so fascinating to look back at your parent’s names and other family members to see where their names originated from. Ancestry.com has recently revealed the top names of the last 500 years.

The research involved studying more than 34 million UK and Irish christening and birth records from 1530 to 2005. It’s interesting to see which names have remained popular over the past 500 years and others that have dropped off the map.

Take a look at the top 25 male and female names below. Is your name or anyone from your family’s on the list?

The figures show that after ‘John’ – of which there have been more than 5.8 million born since 1530 – ‘William’, ‘Thomas’, ‘George’ and ‘James’ are the next most popular first names for boys.

For women, following ‘Mary’ – of whom more than 4.5 million have been born since 1530 – are ‘Elizabeth’, ‘Sarah’, ‘Margaret’ and ‘Ann’, with ‘Jane’, ‘Alice’, ‘Ellen’, ‘Annie’ and ‘Florence’ comprising the rest of the top 10.

TOP 25 MALE NAMES OF LAST 500 YEARS
1. John
2. William
3. Thomas
4. George
5. James
6. Robert
7. Charles
8. Henry
9. Joseph
10. David
11. Richard
12. Federick
13. Arthur
14. Edward
15. Albert
16. Alfred
17. Michael
18. Peter
19. Walter
20. Ernest
21. Samuel
22. Harry
23. Stephen
24. Frank
25. Paul

TOP 25 FEMALE NAMES OF LAST 500 YEARS
1. Mary
2. Elizabeth
3. Sarah
4. Margaret
5. Ann
6. Jane
7. Alice
8. Ellen
9. Annie
10. Florence
11. Emma
12. Edith
13. Emily
14. Eliza
15. Hannah
16. Susan
17. Martha
18. Dorothy
19. Catherine
20. Ethel
21. Ada
22. Anne
23. Frances
24. Elsie
25. Harriet

Are your parent’s names on the list?