Americans have had mixed feelings about the British monarchy over the centuries.  In the Colonial era, support for the throne was simple patriotism, and then in the Revolutionary years it became the exact opposite.  With the passage of time and the gradual development of friendly relations between the two nations, a degree of interest in the British Royal family has re-exerted itself in America. 

Often, that shows up in how American parents name their babies.  Names associated with British royalty have gained and lost Popularity over the decades, often in sync with the rise and fall of individual royals’ popularity.  Let’s take a look at how these royal baby names have fared in the past century or so, and speculate a little on the reasons for their popularity or unpopularity. 

Cause and Effect? Not So Fast

Before we dive into our look at the effect of Royal Family names on Americans’ baby name choices, it’s important to remember that we can see correlations — this name rose in popularity, this name fell — but can’t say for sure that it’s because of the royal connection. 

Consider the case of the future King Edward VIII, who became the Prince of Wales shortly before the First World War.  He was an international celebrity in the 1910s and 1920s, known as “the most eligible bachelor in the world.”  The recent rise of newsreel films (in those days before broadcast TV) and photo magazines made his face familiar to hundreds of millions around the globe.  The whiff of scandal around his name — he was said to be a womanizer, and rumors of his conquests were hot gossip — didn’t hurt, either. 

Sure enough, during those decades, Edward was one of the top 10 baby names in the United States.  But … it was already within, or hovering near, the top 10 for the preceding three decades, as well.  Was that because Queen Victoria’s son was also an Edward (hence “Edwardian” as an adjective for this time period)?  Or was it just that Edward was a popular name before and after these two princes? 

There’s no way to know for sure without inventing a time machine and asking a few hundred thousand parents what they were thinking.  However, we can note that the name dropped out of the Top 10 in the 1930s, in the years surrounding Edward’s controversial abdication and all the way down to 18th in the 1940s (when he was rumored to be a Nazi sympathizer). 

A Selection of Prominent Royal Family Names

A lot of names have been associated with Britain’s ruling families over the years, but some can be left out of the discussion simply because they aren’t recent enough.  It’s been nearly 1000 years since there was a Stephen or a John, for example, so we can reasonably dismiss those as examples of the royal influence. 

James was a royal name in the early Colonial era, but there hasn’t been a King James since 1688.  While the name’s enduring popularity in America probably owes something to that, it’s now more about tradition than any “live” royal influence.  Other names have proven more evergreen, with Colonial-era monikers like George and Charlotte coming around again in the current generation of much-photographed, rosy-cheeked royal children. 

So let’s take a look at a handful of representative and current royal names, and how their popularity has risen and fallen with the decades. 

We’ve aimed for a good cross-section of names representing current royal adults and children, as well as partners of prominent royals (Philip, Diana, Camilla) and a few other members of the extended royal family, such as Andrew and Margaret among the older generation, and Eugenie and Beatrice representing the younger royals. 

Royal Baby Names That Rose in Popularity

Now comes the fun part: Let’s take a look at how these names fared over the past hundred years, starting with those that showed one or more bumps in popularity that could reasonably be attributed to the royal family’s influence. 

George

A century ago, the name George stood firmly in the top 10 for boys, but the intervening decades show a long, slow slide, eventually going as low as 166th in 2012.  Then, in mid-2013, Prince William and Duchess Kate named their first-born (and eventual heir to the throne) George.  The name jumped 31 places to 135th in 2014 (the next full year), and rose as high as 119th.  That’s an appreciable bump, and — because it reversed a long slide — can be reasonably attributed to the royals’ influence. 

William

William has remained a top-20 name throughout the last century, but its general trend had been downward.  The current prince’s birth in 1982 didn’t reverse that trend, but it began to rise again as he reached adulthood and featured prominently in magazines and gossip columns.  By the time of his marriage in 2011 it was back up to 3rd place, and has been no lower than 5th or 6th since then. 

Louis

The name Louis was experiencing a modest rise in popularity, from the 300s into the low 200s, before William and Kate gave that name to their second son.  Since his birth, it’s been as high as 246th.  

August

Little August is the son of Princess Eugenie, daughter of Prince Andrew and former wife Sarah Ferguson.  It’s an unusual name that had risen from the 600s at the turn of the century to 155th before his 2021 birth, but jumped to 109th in 2022.

Archie

Archie became a royal name in May of 2019, when Prince Harry and wife Meghan gave that name to their little boy.  The name was 984th in popularity the year before, jumped to 674th in 2019, and now sits at 377th, its highest point since the 1960s. 

Charlotte

Charlotte’s been a popular royal name for centuries, as Bridgerton fans (and residents of North Carolina) know well.  A century ago it was 79th in popularity for girls, and bottomed out at 377th in 1999.  It would return to the top 100 by 2008, and leaped back into the top 10 with the birth of the current Princess Charlotte (daughter of William and Kate) in 2015.  It currently stands 3rd among girls’ names, and while the upward trend was already in place it’s likely the “royal effect” also played a big role. 

Diana

 The year before her fairytale marriage (as we thought of it then) in 1981, Diana was 118th among girl’s names.  In the next two years, it rose to 75th and then 63rd, and remained relatively popular through the 1980s.  Another small bump followed her tragic death in 1997. 

Meghan

The name Meghan (in this spelling) only entered the top 1000 in 1967 and dropped out again by 2013, peaking along the way at 63rd in 1985.  It re-entered the top 1000 names abruptly in 2018, after Meghan Markle married Prince Harry, and remained there for four years. 

Sophie

The current Duchess of Edinburgh is wife to Prince Edward, Queen Elizabeth’s youngest son.  Like Diana and Sarah Ferguson before her, she was a non-royal until her 1999 marriage.  Her name was on the rise prior to that, but jumped from the mid-200s to the mid-100s after the wedding. 

Margaret

The late Queen’s younger sister was a high-profile royal in the 1950s and early 1960s, thanks to her beauty, high spirits and especially her highly-publicized romance with the divorced and non-royal Peter Townsend.  Oddly, her own popularity at the time isn’t reflected in her name’s popularity, which continued a long, slow decline in those years (top 10 in the 1930s, top 20 in the 1940s, top 30 for most of the 1950s, and so on).  Interestingly, though, when Netflix drama “The Crown” began airing in 2016 — covering her glory years of the 1950s — the name experienced a modest bump, rising from the 150s beforehand to the 130s and 120s afterwards. 

Royal Baby Names That Fell in Popularity

Edward

We’ve already discussed the ambiguous part Edward VII played in his name’s popularity in the earlier parts of this century.  The current Edward (Elizabeth’s youngest son, now Duke of Edinburgh) hasn’t arrested the name’s long slide since the abdication era.  Neither his birth or marriage appear to have had any impact along the way.  We can make a case for Edward VIII contributing to its decline, but the current Edward’s effect was neutral if anything. 

Andrew

The middle brother between Charles and Edward, Prince Andrew has had an up-and-down image.  His 1986 marriage to Sarah Ferguson, while Charles and Diana were still seen as a fairy-tale couple, may have been responsible for his name’s bump from top 20 in the preceding years to the top 10 while the marriage lasted, dropping back again when the couple separated in 1992.  In 2014 he would be accused of sexual relations with a minor, as part of the expanding Jeffrey Epstein scandal, and his name’s popularity has continued to decline as drawn-out court cases have kept his personal life squarely in the public eye (and not in a good way). 

Philip

The name Philip has dropped from 70th a century ago to 494th in 2022, though it may not be the fault of Queen Elizabeth’s longtime husband.  In fact the name experienced a slight bump in popularity in the few years following their 1947 marriage.  Probably the fairest assessment is that he lacked enough personal popularity to reverse the name’s long-term decline. 

Mary

Mary was the top name for girls for much of the last century, and in fact was the top female name overall for the period 1919-2021.  It’s also the name of Queen Elizabeth’s grandmother, wife of George V.  It was still a top 10 name as recently as 1971, but currently (2022) sits 136th.  The name’s royal associations probably don’t have much to do with this. 

Baby Names Unaffected by Their Royal Associations

Elizabeth

Elizabeth has enjoyed solid, unspectacular popularity as a girl’s name for the past century, never dropping below 26th and occasionally cracking the top 10.  The late Queen seems to have had little influence on this, as the name’s popularity was unaffected by her birth, marriage, coronation or death.

Eugenie

Prince Andrew’s daughter Eugenie is one of the more popular royals of the younger generation, but 1920 was the only time this name reached the top 1000 in the US. 

Beatrice

The name of Eugenie’s older sister has been somewhat more popular, holding down the 46th spot in 1923.  It almost fell out of the top 1000 girls’ names around the turn of the century, but has rebounded into the mid-500s.  The name’s popularity rebounded slightly around the time of the princess’ birth in 1988, but remained in line with the overall trend. 

Camilla

This is a tough one for royal-watchers, because Camilla is currently the Queen Consort but previously was “the other woman” (and therefore the baddie) in Charles and Diana’s breakup.  It’s hard to say whether her role in that early-90s melodrama made her name less popular, simply because it was unpopular to begin with, not even cracking the top 1000 from 1978 to 2001.  There’s been a concerted push among royalists in the U.K. to rehabilitate her reputation, and indeed her name has risen as high as 261st in 2020, but it’s hard to make a case that she’s the reason why. 

Charles

The new king spent longer in the heir-apparent role than anyone in British history, but despite the media glare of his marriage with the hugely-popular Diana — and the even more intense scrutiny around the failure of that marriage — he appears to have had little influence on baby-name choices.  His name’s popularity has been in a long, slow, steady decline for the entirety of the past century, and neither his birth, his marriage nor his divorce had any visible impact. 

Harry

Harry became a royal name again when Charles’ younger son was born in 1984.  The name had been on a long, slow drop from popularity, from 22nd a century ago to a low of 779th in 2015.  There was something of a rebound in 2016 when he became romantically linked with American actress Meghan Markle, as the name Harry returned to the high 700s and low 600s in the ensuing years.  That could be construed as a “royal bump,” except … that’s where it ranked in the years before 2015, as well.  It’s a coin-toss, at best. 

Making “The Name Game” Work for You

Over the last century the royal family has become rather less stuffy, as an institution.  In the 1930s it was an earth-shaking scandal that Edward VIII wanted to marry a commoner!  An American!  A divorcee!  Yet today King Charles’ consort is the divorced and non-royal Camilla, and his sons have both married non-royals, one of them an American and an actress. 

That less-formal style has extended to names within and around the royal family, with Zara, Isla, Sienna and Lucas all currently showing up among them.  So, if you’re thinking of giving your child a royal (or royal-adjacent) name, your options are broader than ever.  One way to evaluate those options is through the use of the SSA’s interactive search tool, which can give you the popularity of any name by year going all the way back to 1920 (assuming it’s been among the top 1000 names).  That was the top resource used in preparing this article, and it’s great for seeing popularity trends rise and fall. 

Another option is using Spokeo’s Name Search.  Type in your possible baby name along with a handful of common surnames, and see how many results come back (search your own last name as well, to see how many namesakes your child would have).  A look at the sheer number of results, as well as their ages and geographic distribution, will give you a notion of how common your chosen name is. 

How you use that information is up to you.  Some parents are happy to use an already-popular name, while others are contrarians and want one that’s relatively uncommon.  Either way, the royal family has you covered. 

Sources:

• Historic UK – King Edward VIII
• People Magazine – What’s In a Royal Name? See the Most Popular Royal-Inspired Baby Names In the US and the UK
• Social Security Administration – Popularity of Baby Names by Year (Interactive Search Tool)