Namewise

Most births recorded in the 1980s

Names whose largest single-year birth count from any one registrar — with at least three recorded years either side of it — falls between 1980 and 1989.

A different question from the decade a name ranked highest, and often a different answer: 2,754 names in the catalogue peak in count in one decade and in position in another. Rank depends on what every other name is doing, so a name can rank higher in a later year while being given to fewer children. Restricted to names with at least three recorded years either side of the peak, so the highest point of a record is not simply where the data begins or ends. A count of registered births, not a share and not a rate — and counts do not carry between registrars. England and Wales records roughly 600,000 births a year and Northern Ireland roughly 22,000, so the same naming habit produces figures nearly thirty times apart. A name reaching a larger count than another therefore says which registrar recorded it at least as much as it says how widely it was given. Each figure names its registrar and year for that reason. Within one registrar the counts are directly comparable; across them they are not.

207 names, ordered by largest recorded count first.