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A Guide to Historically Accurate Regency-Era Names

I recently received a message from a historical romance writer asking if I knew any good resources for finding historically accurate Regency-era names for their characters.

Not knowing any off the top of my head, I dug around online a bit and found there really isn’t much out there. The vast majority of search results were Buzzfeed-style listicles which range from accurate-adjacent to really, really, really bad.

I did find a few blog posts with fairly decent name lists, but noticed that even these have very little indication as to each name’s relative popularity as those statistical breakdowns really don't exist.

I began writing up a response with this information, but then I (being a research addict who was currently snowed in after a blizzard) thought hey - if there aren’t any good resources out there why not make one myself?

As I lacked any compiled data to work from, I had to do my own data wrangling on this project. Due to this fact, I limited the scope to what I thought would be the most useful for writers who focus on this era, namely - people of a marriageable age living in the wealthiest areas of London.

So with this in mind - I went through period records and compiled the names of 25,000 couples who were married in the City of Westminster (which includes Mayfair, St. James and Hyde Park) between 1804 to 1821.

So let’s see what all that data tells us…

To begin - I think it’s hard for us in the modern world with our wide and varied abundance of first names to conceive of just how POPULAR popular names of the past were.

If you were to take a modern sample of 25-year-old (born in 1998) American women, the most common name would be Emily with 1.35% of the total population. If you were to add the next four most popular names (Hannah, Samantha, Sarah and Ashley) these top five names would bring you to 5.5% of the total population. (source: Social Security Administration)

If you were to do the same survey in Regency London - the most common name would be Mary with 19.2% of the population. Add the next four most popular names (Elizabeth, Ann, Sarah and Jane) and with just 5 names you would have covered 62% of all women.

To hit 62% of the population in the modern survey it would take the top 400 names.

The top five Regency men’s names (John, William, Thomas, James and George) have nearly identical statistics as the women’s names.

I struggled for the better part of a week with how to present my findings, as a big list in alphabetical order really fails to get across the popularity factor and also isn’t the most tumblr-compatible format. And then my YouTube homepage recommended a random video of someone ranking all the books they’d read last year - and so I present…

The Regency Name Popularity Tier List

The Tiers

S+ - 10% of the population or greater. There is no modern equivalent to this level of popularity. 52% of the population had one of these 7 names.

S - 2-10%. There is still no modern equivalent to this level of popularity. Names in this percentage range in the past have included Mary and William in the 1880s and Jennifer in the late 1970s (topped out at 4%).

A - 1-2%. The top five modern names usually fall in this range. Kids with these names would probably include their last initial in class to avoid confusion. (1998 examples: Emily, Sarah, Ashley, Michael, Christopher, Brandon.)

B - .3-1%. Very common names. Would fall in the top 50 modern names. You would most likely know at least 1 person with these names. (1998 examples: Jessica, Megan, Allison, Justin, Ryan, Eric)

C - .17-.3%. Common names. Would fall in the modern top 100. You would probably know someone with these names, or at least know of them. (1998 examples: Chloe, Grace, Vanessa, Sean, Spencer, Seth)

D - .06-.17%. Less common names. In the modern top 250. You may not personally know someone with these names, but you’re aware of them. (1998 examples: Faith, Cassidy, Summer, Griffin, Dustin, Colby)

E - .02-.06%. Uncommon names. You’re aware these are names, but they are not common. Unusual enough they may be remarked upon. (1998 examples: Calista, Skye, Precious, Fabian, Justice, Lorenzo)

F - .01-.02%. Rare names. You may have heard of these names, but you probably don’t know anyone with one. Extremely unusual, and would likely be remarked upon. (1998 examples: Emerald, Lourdes, Serenity, Dario, Tavian, Adonis)

G - Very rare names. There are only a handful of people with these names in the entire country. You’ve never met anyone with this name.

H - Virtually non-existent. Names that theoretically could have existed in the Regency period (their original source pre-dates the early 19th century) but I found fewer than five (and often no) period examples of them being used in Regency England. (Example names taken from romance novels and online Regency name lists.)

Just to once again reinforce how POPULAR popular names were before we get to the tier lists - statistically, in a ballroom of 100 people in Regency London: 80 would have names from tiers S+/S. An additional 15 people would have names from tiers A/B and C. 4 of the remaining 5 would have names from D/E. Only one would have a name from below tier E.

Women's Names

S+ Mary, Elizabeth, Ann, Sarah      

S - Jane, Mary Ann+, Hannah, Susannah, Margaret, Catherine, Martha, Charlotte, Maria

A - Frances, Harriet, Sophia, Eleanor, Rebecca

B - Alice, Amelia, Bridget~, Caroline, Eliza, Esther, Isabella, Louisa, Lucy, Lydia, Phoebe, Rachel, Susan

C - Ellen, Fanny*, Grace, Henrietta, Hester, Jemima, Matilda, Priscilla

D - Abigail, Agnes, Amy, Augusta, Barbara, Betsy*, Betty*, Cecilia, Christiana, Clarissa, Deborah, Diana, Dinah, Dorothy, Emily, Emma, Georgiana, Helen, Janet^, Joanna, Johanna, Judith, Julia, Kezia, Kitty*, Letitia, Nancy*, Ruth, Winifred>

E - Arabella, Celia, Charity, Clara, Cordelia, Dorcas, Eve, Georgina, Honor, Honora, Jennet^, Jessie*^, Joan, Joyce, Juliana, Juliet, Lavinia, Leah, Margery, Marian, Marianne, Marie, Mercy, Miriam, Naomi, Patience, Penelope, Philadelphia, Phillis, Prudence, Rhoda, Rosanna, Rose, Rosetta, Rosina, Sabina, Selina, Sylvia, Theodosia, Theresa

F - (selected) Alicia, Bethia, Euphemia, Frederica, Helena, Leonora, Mariana, Millicent, Mirah, Olivia, Philippa, Rosamund, Sybella, Tabitha, Temperance, Theophila, Thomasin, Tryphena, Ursula, Virtue, Wilhelmina

G - (selected) Adelaide, Alethia, Angelina, Cassandra, Cherry, Constance, Delilah, Dorinda, Drusilla, Eva, Happy, Jessica, Josephine, Laura, Minerva, Octavia, Parthenia, Theodora, Violet, Zipporah

H - Alberta, Alexandra, Amber, Ashley, Calliope, Calpurnia, Chloe, Cressida, Cynthia, Daisy, Daphne, Elaine, Eloise, Estella, Lilian, Lilias, Francesca, Gabriella, Genevieve, Gwendoline, Hermione, Hyacinth, Inez, Iris, Kathleen, Madeline, Maude, Melody, Portia, Seabright, Seraphina, Sienna, Verity

Men's Names

S+ John, William, Thomas

S - James, George, Joseph, Richard, Robert, Charles, Henry, Edward, Samuel

A - Benjamin, (Mother’s/Grandmother’s maiden name used as first name)#

B - Alexander^, Andrew, Daniel, David, Edmund, Francis, Frederick, Isaac, Matthew, Michael, Patrick~, Peter, Philip, Stephen, Timothy

C - Abraham, Anthony, Christopher, Hugh>, Jeremiah, Jonathan, Nathaniel, Walter

D - Adam, Arthur, Bartholomew, Cornelius, Dennis, Evan>, Jacob, Job, Josiah, Joshua, Lawrence, Lewis, Luke, Mark, Martin, Moses, Nicholas, Owen>, Paul, Ralph, Simon

E - Aaron, Alfred, Allen, Ambrose, Amos, Archibald, Augustin, Augustus, Barnard, Barney, Bernard, Bryan, Caleb, Christian, Clement, Colin, Duncan^, Ebenezer, Edwin, Emanuel, Felix, Gabriel, Gerard, Gilbert, Giles, Griffith, Harry*, Herbert, Humphrey, Israel, Jabez, Jesse, Joel, Jonas, Lancelot, Matthias, Maurice, Miles, Oliver, Rees, Reuben, Roger, Rowland, Solomon, Theophilus, Valentine, Zachariah

F - (selected) Abel, Barnabus, Benedict, Connor, Elijah, Ernest, Gideon, Godfrey, Gregory, Hector, Horace, Horatio, Isaiah, Jasper, Levi, Marmaduke, Noah, Percival, Shadrach, Vincent

G - (selected) Albion, Darius, Christmas, Cleophas, Enoch, Ethelbert, Gavin, Griffin, Hercules, Hugo, Innocent, Justin, Maximilian, Methuselah, Peregrine, Phineas, Roland, Sebastian, Sylvester, Theodore, Titus, Zephaniah

H - Albinus, Americus, Cassian, Dominic, Eric, Milo, Rollo, Trevor, Tristan, Waldo, Xavier

& Men were sometimes given a family surname (most often their mother's or grandmother's maiden name) as their first name - the most famous example of this being Fitzwilliam Darcy. If you were to combine all surname-based first names as a single 'name' this is where the practice would rank.

*Rank as a given name, not a nickname

+If you count Mary Ann as a separate name from Mary - Mary would remain in S+ even without the Mary Anns included

~Primarily used by people of Irish descent

^Primarily used by people of Scottish descent

>Primarily used by people of Welsh descent

I was going to continue on and write about why Regency-era first names were so uniform, discuss historically accurate surnames, nicknames, and include a little guide to finding 'unique' names that are still historically accurate - but this post is already very, very long, so that will have to wait for a later date.

If anyone has any questions/comments/clarifications in the meantime feel free to message me.

Methodology notes: All data is from marriage records covering six parishes in the City of Westminster between 1804 and 1821. The total sample size was 50,950 individuals.

I chose marriage records rather than births/baptisms as I wanted to focus on individuals who were adults during the Regency era rather than newborns. I think many people make the mistake when researching historical names by using baby name data for the year their story takes place rather than 20 to 30 years prior, and I wanted to avoid that. If you are writing a story that takes place in 1930 you don’t want to research the top names for 1930, you need to be looking at 1910 or earlier if you are naming adult characters.

I combined (for my own sanity) names that are pronounced identically but have minor spelling differences: i.e. the data for Catherine also includes Catharines and Katherines, Susannah includes Susannas, Phoebe includes Phebes, etc.

The compound 'Mother's/Grandmother's maiden name used as first name' designation is an educated guesstimate based on what I recognized as known surnames, as I do not hate myself enough to go through 25,000+ individuals and confirm their mother's maiden names. So if the tally includes any individuals who just happened to be named Fitzroy/Hastings/Townsend/etc. because their parents liked the sound of it and not due to any familial relations - my bad.

I did a small comparative survey of 5,000 individuals in several rural communities in Rutland and Staffordshire (chosen because they had the cleanest data I could find and I was lazy) to see if there were any significant differences between urban and rural naming practices and found the results to be very similar. The most noticeable difference I observed was that the S+ tier names were even MORE popular in rural areas than in London. In Rutland between 1810 and 1820 Elizabeths comprised 21.4% of all brides vs. 15.3% in the London survey. All other S+ names also saw increases of between 1% and 6%. I also observed that the rural communities I surveyed saw a small, but noticeable and fairly consistent, increase in the use of names with Biblical origins.

Sources of the records I used for my survey: 

Ancestry.com. England & Wales Marriages, 1538-1988 [database on-line].

Ancestry.com. Westminster, London, England, Church of England Marriages and Banns, 1754-1935 [database on-line].

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I hate when an artist gets exposed for being a bad person and people start the narrative “why would you even want to listen to their shitty music” when are we going to be freed from the idea that only good people create good art and bad people create bad art. It just makes it harder for these types of people to be exposed because now you got people thinking “how is this possible, his music is so good!”

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I’m way behind on Tumblr. Barely keeping up on tiktok with Butch positivity.

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I DID HTIS UQUIZ BEFORE ATCUALLY BUT TY FOR THE TAG :3 my result godbles the haunted house

anatomy was such a good game the monologues were crazy tbh

haunted house uquiz by streetlighthalo

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not to start a heavy subject but. sometimes I find myself in the company of people who had a very good childhood and a very functional and well-off family, and as we discuss these things they look at me with shock - and as if I am the shocking minority. being totally and fully oblivious that it's them who are a minority - and that whatever they think the average experience of a child is, in poland and otherwise, is simply untrue. the average child has it much, much worse than they could even imagine

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people online talk so much about hating babies and kids but in "the meatspace" people LOVE babies. hang out with a baby and you will see so many people staring at you with big smiles and waving at you and going "that baby is SO cute" and generally being pleasant unprompted. the lady at the vietnamese place just now gave us like three extra soup spoons because my niece loves those spoons but kept dropping them on the floor and the lady kept giving us more with a massive smile on her face. on our walk today a bunch of construction guys waved and grinned at her the whole time we walked by, and when we passed by an elementary school a little girl said "your baby's really sweet!" babies are not balls of irritation and hatred they are beacons of joy and kindness actually and they bring out the best in strangers. whenever im out with her we have multiple positive interactions with strangers who are so happy to see her. or maybe it's just that my baby niece is the cutest most wonderful baby in the world :]

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@mothmore

On a night walk from a long-delayed visit to the theatre, Utterson mentions he never learned to dance properly. Jekyll, of course, takes it on himself to help his lawyer.

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Not to be a teacher on main but a lot of people in the "video essay" community need a reminder on what an essay is. an ESSAY is NOT an explainer, an account of an investigation, or a summary of information. It certainly can involve those things. However, an essay is an argument for a particular idea backed up with analysis and evidence that supports that point of view. "the themes of Barbie, explained" is not really an essay. "how the themes of Barbie reinforce gender essentialism" is an essay. "the story behind this cooky subculture" is not essay. "how capitalism co-opted this subculture" is an essay. "all the ways Oppenheimer isn't historically accurate" isn't an essay. "here's why I think Oppenheimer is about the cult of individualism" is an essay. "I spoke to all these people about this topic and here's what they all said" isn't an essay. "I investigated this topic, spoke to these people, and here's how what they said supports my thesis" is an essay. At its most basic level, an essay answers the question of "why the fuck should you care?" at every point. It doesn't get bogged down in context or summarisation. A lot of "video essays" are not really essays they're just people saying, "I found this thing and I wanna show you the thing" and there's nothing wrong with that. It's just not an essay. Just because a video goes for longer than 5 minutes, doesn't mean it's an essay!!! I'm kinda annoyed at how the essay as a form is getting lost. A lot of people calling themselves video essayists are not actually making essays and as an essay enjoyer I am annoyed by this and think people need to call a long form video a long form video rather than calling all of them essays!!

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Learning German & Staying alive

☄  https://german.net/ - free online resource with some tests, text, and planty more. Great for reading and reading comprehention;

☄ https://germanwithlaura.com - great course that explains grammar a bit more manageable;

☄ https://www.clozemaster.com - somewhat of a duolingo-copy, gamification at ift greatest. From 100 to 50 000 common words in context, can be used for free;

☄ https://wunderdeutsch.com/uk/grammatik-null-u/ - grammar, but in ukrainian. Helpful;

☄ https://golernen.com/ - more grammar, with ukrainian language avaliable;

☄ https://piracywhiskeypoetry.tumblr.com/post/136460408137/language-resources-masterpost - masterpost with multiple language;

☄ https://mein-deutschbuch.de/grammatik.html - another damn grammar

☄ https://www.quia.com/web - tests, some fun stuff.

sheesh I would need to make it pretty, but for now will do

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People liking your personal OCs is still such a crazy feeling, I've been doing this for years and ppl asking about them still fills my entire heart with warmth and idk how to handle it

You enjoy this fictional guy I made up for fun?? Whose only content is random artwork or writing made by me and a handful of other artists at most? They have no show/book/game with a large fandom, it's just one person with an art blog?? I love u

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my boyfriend went insnae and I died because of it

#god bles #frankenstein #the modern prometheus #gothic lit

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We need more additions to this subgenre.

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i love tumblr because sometimes i get an urge to rb posts about something nobody likes and everyone just politely ignores me. everyone's like oh he's fallen into madness again, he'll be fine later i guess

#introducing: louis manoir #/hj #anyways guys you wnat to read my frankenstein spin off forgotten mans symphony soooo BADLYYY #story: fms

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this isnt tjust a cult HOUSE. its a cult HOME. (this still is not a good thing)

thanks for giving me a new weird hyperfixation on house horror (there are too many fixations now and I need you to look after them every other wednesday)

YOU. UYOU COME HERE RIGHT NOW COME EHRE RIGHT NOW IVE BEEN AHVING AN ARCHIETCTURAL HROOR HYPERFIX FOR SO LONG WE WILL HOLD HANDS AN DTALK ABOUT IT TOEGTERH. GRABS YOU. I WILL PUT YOU ISNDIE THE HOUSE FOR REAL. @rotchamp @mothmore I INDOCTRINATED ANOTEHR ONE INTO ARCITETCURAL HORROR I AM SO SERIOUS

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i’ve been going jstor dumpster-diving a lot so here’s a collection of articles: haunted house edition <3 i’ve put them all here, but let me know if anything doesn’t work and i’ll fix it!! 

contents: 

- Emma Liggins, The Haunted House in Women’s Ghost Stories: Gender, Space and Modernity, 1850–1945 - Richard Pascal, Walking Alone Together: Family Monsters in the Haunting of Hill House - Amanda Bingham Solomon, Haunting the Imagination: The Haunted House as Dark Space in American Culture - Roberta Rubenstein, House Mothers and Haunted Daughters: Shirley Jackson and Female Gothic  - Cristiana Pugliese, What Does a House Want? Exploring Sentient Houses in Supernatural Literature  - Elizabeth Jean Hornbeck, Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?: Domestic Violence in The Shining - Emma Zimmerman, “Always the same stairs, always the same room”: The Uncanny Architecture of Jean Rhys’s Good Morning, Midnight - Emma Short, ‘One Is Somehow Suspended’: Elizabeth Bowen, Katherine Mansfield and the Spaces in Between  - Anthony Vidler, The Architectural Uncanny: Essays in the Modern Unhomely  - Elizabeth Wilson, Haunted Houses - Aspasia Stephanou, Helen Oyeyemi’s White is for Witching and the Discourse of Consumption

#save