Where the figures come from
The source is the Office for National Statistics. Is My Name Rare? imports the published yearly records and turns them into searchable history for one exact spelling.
These figures do not cover the whole United Kingdom. Scotland and Northern Ireland publish their own statistics separately.
What each result can show
- Annual published birth count
- Official rank within the source category
- Peak and lowest published years
- Recent multi-year direction
- Female and male source-category breakdown
What the figures cannot tell you
They do not count every living person with a name, measure spelling variants together, or prove that an unpublished name was unused. They describe published birth-name records for a particular year and source category.
Compare carefully
National population sizes and publication practices differ. The site shows raw counts transparently but does not call one country “more popular” solely because its raw count is higher.