Looking at the popular baby names of each generation often provides an interesting reflection of that era. The current generation of babies are called Generation Alpha, those born from the year 2010. They have been described by McCrindle Research’s “Baby names Australia report 2022,” as “the most digital, global and visual generation on the planet. When they have all been born (2025) they will number almost 2 billion – the largest generation in the history of the world.”
Since 2010, Isla has seen a surge in popularity from 34th position to now making her debut as the most popular girls’ name. For the first time since 2015, Australia has a new top baby girl name. Charlotte was the long-standing number one baby girl name title and is now in second position, followed by Olivia, then Amelia.
While the Top 10 girls’ names have remained mostly unchanged, Chloe moved out of the Top 10 now placing 12th to be eclipsed by Ella coming in at number 10.
Oliver continues to be the most popular baby boy name and has been since overtaking Jack as the number one boys’ name in 2013. Henry has gained popularity and now places as the 4th most popular boys name. Theodore has also increased in popularity, making it into the top 10 for the first time, at number 8 this year.
Some of the most popular names that have debuted in the last decade for girls include Hazel, Florence, Daisy, Frankie, Luna, Ayla, Sadie, Billie, Millie, Aurora and Mila. Even in these debuted names, we see some of the prominent baby naming trends of colours, nature inspired names, botanic names, names that end in ‘ie’ and place names.
Some of the most popular names that have debuted for boys in the last decade include Theodore, Hudson, Arlo, Archer, Harvey, Carter, Arthur, Sonny and Asher.
Some of the newer Generation Alpha names that have made a debut in the Top 100 in the past couple of years and have been slowly rising in popularity include Mila, Remi, Maeve and Delilah.
Names that have debuted in more recent years like Arthur, Ari, Ezra, River, Theo, Billy, and Luka have been steadily growing in popularity and are names to watching in the coming years.
Parents today are getting more creative with the names they choose, selecting from a greater range of names particularly in the names parents are choosing for their daughters.
Names worded in different ways have been becoming popular and seems to be a great way of making a traditional name seem unique. Examples include Zoe and Zoey, Sophia and Sofia and Amelia and Emilia.
In recent years there has been a trend of opting for shorter names as first names. For example, Jack versus Jackson, Leo versus Leonardo, Archie versus Archer and Eli versus Elias. For girls, Ella outranks Isabella and Isabelle in popularity.
Of course, botanicals are associated with pretty flowers, and so parents continue to use the botanical theme as a sourcing of naming their daughters with the top 3 most popular being Willow, Lily and Ivy. Other top 10 botanical girls names include Delilah, Olive and Poppy.
A nature-inspired theme that has emerged is using atmosphere-inspired names. Examples of this trend include Luna, Aurora and Stella, Summer and Evie. For boys examples include Kai, River and Bodhi that feature in the Top 100.
Baby girl names inspired by colour that feature in the top 100 include Ruby, Hazel, Violet, Scarlett, Olive, Jasmine and Rose.
Consider looking for inspiration from your favourite places, including memorable destinations you have travelled to, like other parents today are doing. These include names like Charlotte, Sienna, Georgia, Florence, Sofia , Savannah , Eden and Indiana for girls and Hudson, Jordan , Austin , Logan and Jackson for boys.
The trend in Australia now is for a gentle, softer-sounding names for girls and firmer sounding names for boys.
It seems hugely popular for girls names to end with a vowel or a ‘y’ sound, with 90% of the girls’ names in the Top 20 ending with this. The only names in the Top 20 girls’ names that end with a consonant are Willow and Harper. In fact, more than half of the Top 100 list of girls’ names end in an ‘ah’ or ‘ie’ sound.
For boys, many of their names still end in a consonant, but those that end in a vowel are on the rise, such as Noah, Henry, Leo, Charlie, Theodore, Elijah, Archie, Levi and Luca.
Popular girls’ names are not only most likely to end in a vowel, but they are also likely to begin with one too. Ones that are consistently popular for girls include Isla, Ava, Ivy, Evie, Ellie, Ayla. While this trend is not so popular amongst the boys, examples include Arlo, Eli and Ezra.
A trend that has been increasing in the last few years particularly for girls, is shortening names and adding an ‘ie’ on the end: Rose to Rosie, Savannah to Sadie, Amelia to Millie, Isabella to Billie, Charlotte to Charlie, Elizabeth to Ellie Only eight boys’ names end in ‘ie’ or i’:
For boys’, there is also a trend of shortening and ending with an ‘o,’ like Leo, Arlo and Hugo.
The only two names in the Top 100 that appear on both the girls’ and boys’ list in exactly the same spelling are Charlie and Riley. Several girls’ names from the Top 100 can be interchanged for boys’ names. Some interesting examples of these include Harper, Frankie, Mackenzie, Quinn and Peyton. Some boys names are also are increasingly being used to name daughters, those such as Ezra, Dylan, Bodhi, Jordan, Ali, Luka, Bailey and Jesse.
Parents are choosing longer, more flowing names for their daughters and shorter, more solid-sounding names for their sons.
Millennials seem to be seeking inspiration from the Gen Alpha babies of the Royal Family. For example, Prince Louis and Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor have given rise to the names Louis and Archie. Prince George born in 2013 and Princess Charlotte born in 2015 have made these two names popular. When Princess Charlotte was born in 2015, her name overtook Olivia as the most popular baby name, where it has remained in the top two since 2015.
Millennial parents are drawing inspiration from celebrities when it comes to naming their children. Celebrities that Millennial parents have drawn inspiration from include Isla Fisher, Scarlett Johansson, Ariana Grande, Billie Eilish, Millie Bobby-Brown and Leonardo DiCaprio.
In addition to a trend towards unique names, there is also a return in names that were popular at the turn of the century, those such as Grace, Stella, Charlotte, William, Jack and Violet.
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