Siobhan Thomas - Best Baby Names 2021

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Siobhan Thomas is a copywriter and senior editor for the UKs largest baby names website, babynames.co.uk. She oversees the thousands of articles, new name suggestions and discussions in the sites popular community forums. As well as being interested in the history and meaning of names, Siobhan is particularly drawn to how names follow trends, different peoples associations with names and how divisive the subject can be! This book is dedicated to your new baby Enormous thanks to Rosanne Rivers, a freelance writer, novelist and leader of writing workshops for young people. Her work was invaluable in compiling and editing the thousands of names in this book. I would also like to thank James Macfarlane for giving me the opportunity to write this book and for his continuous encouragement and good humour from beginning to end. Thanks, also, to James Brighton, Alan Jones and Annabel Freer for their assistance and input.

Finally I must thank Helen OShea and Dan Holt for their reviews of the manuscript and for their honest opinions and feedback. My mum, Pat, and my husband, Owen, also did their share of rereading but more importantly I want to thank them, and Orla Goncalves, for all their help with the children, without which this book would never have been completed!

Congratulations! A new baby is on the way! It is an incredibly amazing, exciting and life-changing time whether its your first child or another in your ever-extending family. Suddenly, you are doing loads of planning in preparation for your new arrival. You may be rearranging your home or deciding which of the numerous items to buy to welcome your baby. There is so much to do and somehow you have to think of a good name as well. At first, it can seem a rather daunting responsibility as you want to find the very best name for them, but remember it can also be great fun.

The wonderful thing about name-choosing is that it is not limited, not by income or space or anything at all. You are completely free to choose as many options and combinations as you like from the seemingly infinite number of names out there. To choose a name for a brand new person is a uniquely special part of your preparations and a lovely experience to look back upon. By just relaxing and setting a little time aside, you can give your baby a very special gift that will really become as much a part of them in the future as the way they smile! Naturally, youll be keen to get it right so how are you going to decide the perfect name for them? The answers are in this book which will help you on your baby-naming journey! Perhaps you like Richard, Hassan, Zeke or Montague or maybe Natasha, Lily-May or Havana. There are so many to consider that it can be confusing to work out how to begin. In the following pages are ways to start thinking about names, consider your ideas, any possible drawbacks and how to tackle them.

You will also discover how and where to find inspiration, how to focus your choices, narrow them down to a shortlist and make that very final decision, arriving at the perfect baby name. We hope to give you the confidence to plunge in, not worry too much and enjoy yourself. This experience may well become part of your earliest happy memories with your new baby. There is definitely a name out there that you will love and that you will be very happy to say and hear in the coming years. Sit back and let your imagination run wild as you begin to browse through this book. After all, you are very likely to be holding your brilliant final choice in your hands at this very moment!

This book does not have to read from beginning to end.

In fact, that probably isnt the best way at all. It is designed for you to dip in anywhere by browsing or using the contents page. There are pointers and inspiration for everyone; couples and single parents who often like to involve siblings, wider family and close friends in helping to choose the perfect name. Stick markers in, make notes in the margins, highlight your favourites and cross out any names you want to veto. You might also be surprised how different a name can sound when you say it aloud. is a complete how-to guide on choosing baby names.

It helps kick off the journey with ideas and suggestions on how and where to start. It helps in recognising various drawbacks with some names, how to come to agreement with your partner and how to cope with other peoples opinions. is all about inspiration. It offers famous names from categories such as film, sport, high achievers, fiction and many others. It is also reassuring to see a wide range of names, complete with a surname, written down and established as completely acceptable by the wider world. Many people like to dive straight into and find out what the latest Top 100 most popular names are for England and Wales.

While there will always be traditional names, and famous name trends, 2021 looks set to be more diverse than ever as new parents seek wider areas of inspiration. Everything from classical and traditional, mythological, fictional, the natural world to gender-neutral options is inspiration. is the name section, with an alphabetical list of over nine thousand names from all over the world. It is in two sections boys names and girls names with gender-neutral names being identified in both sections. Each entry includes additional information on the origin, meaning, spelling and pronunciation of each name.

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What makes a good name is hugely dependent on when and where.

We can look back over the last century and recognise some of the baby names that were popular 100 years ago; however, many of our modern names would be completely alien to parents of that time. The same is true about all of us who have grown up in different countries and different cultures around the world. Apart from our generation and where we live, our own very individual life experiences will affect our attitudes towards certain names. The names of friends, family, film stars, heroes, bullies, private relationships or public personalities are all going to affect how we view any particular name. Old-fashioned differences between our aspirations for girls and boys still influence our choice of names today. With girls names, many parents still say that they are seeking something feminine, or pretty.

For boys, parents often say they are looking for a strong name. Of course, that isnt to say that a girls name cant be pretty and strong, or a boys name cant be gentle without being weak. There are also plenty of names that are widely used for both genders, which may well support a recent trend for names that are gender neutral. In some cultures, such as Greek Orthodox, the name of a new baby is often determined by the fathers name; having a Junior in the family has long been associated with Americans too, but it has become much less popular there in recent years as parents seek out more unique names. Elsewhere names are determined by a whole host of factors: a baby girl, born at the end of the week to Ghanaian parents, might be called Afia, which means born on a Friday; many Native American names are drawn from nature (direct translations include Rainbow and Butterfly); and African cultures often draw on their aspirations for their children, using names such as Prosperity or Beautiful. In the UK we have been experimenting with new ideas for some time.

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