The names Britain really shares between boys and girls

In 2025, 282 girls and 274 boys in England and Wales were called Remi. No name given to more than 100 babies here came closer to half and half. The year before it was 315 girls and 281 boys.

Names like Remi are rarer than you might think. Of the 1,471 names given to at least 50 babies in England and Wales in 2025, only 49 went to at least one baby in four of each sex. Only 14 were close to an even split. And most of Britain's shared names are girls' names in America.

How we counted

We took every name given to 50 or more babies in England and Wales in 2025, boys and girls together, and counted the girls and the boys separately, straight from the ONS file. We call a name shared when at least a quarter of the babies given it were girls and at least a quarter were boys. Evenly shared means between 40% and 60% girls.

For America we used the 2017 counts, the most recent full American file we hold. America has about six times as many babies, so the bar there is 305 babies rather than 50. That is the same share of all births. Each spelling is counted on its own, so Remi and Remy are two names. We come back to that.

About one baby in 60

The 49 shared names went to 8,568 of the 526,933 babies born in England and Wales in 2025. That is 1.6%, about one baby in 60. The 14 evenly shared names went to 2,019 babies, about one in 260.

America shares more. 74 names were shared there in 2017 by the same rule, and they went to 2.5% of American babies, about one in 40. 23 were evenly shared, against 14 here.

Britain's shared names

The biggest are names you will know, and all four lean towards boys. Frankie went to 887 boys and 462 girls. River went to 481 boys and 287 girls, Riley to 619 boys and 270 girls, and Robin to 485 boys and 186 girls.

The evenly shared ones are smaller. After Remi come Quinn (175 girls, 159 boys), Harlow (133 and 96), Shiloh (53 and 67), Murphy (52 and 65) and Nana (44 and 60). Then Brooklyn, Kaya, Munachimso, Rumi, Ariel, Sasha, Kamsiyochukwu and Roux, each given to between 60 and 85 babies.

Taken together the 49 lean slightly to boys: 4,796 boys and 3,772 girls. 27 of them had more girls than boys and 22 more boys than girls. Every one is in the table at the end.

In America, most of them are girls' names

28 of Britain's 49 shared names were given to enough American babies to compare. In America, 18 of them were mostly girls' names, some by a long way. Remi was 87% girls there, Quinn 80%, Avery 79% and Harlow 95%. Hadley, Ashley and Brooklyn were 99% girls. The other ten were shared in America too. Not one of the 28 was mostly a boys' name in America.

The American rankings since 2017 say the same. In 2025 Remi was 145th for American girls and 787th for boys. Quinn was 97th for girls and 467th for boys.

And America's shared names are boys' names here

Now turn it round. Of America's 74 shared names, 38 were given to 50 or more babies in England and Wales. 26 of those are mostly boys' names here. Rory went to 532 American girls and 856 boys in 2017. In England and Wales in 2025 it went to 1,760 boys and 25 girls. Rowan was a third girls in America and 6% girls here. Charlie, Finley and Oakley, all close to half and half in America, are boys' names in Britain. We wrote about those in girls in America, boys in Britain.

Only two go the other way. Dakota and Jessie are shared in America and mostly girls' names here, on about 100 babies each.

Ten names both countries share

Put the two lists together and ten names are shared in both countries: Frankie, River, Robin, Reign, Shiloh, Murphy, Azariah, Sage, Ira and Alexis.

Even on these ten, Britain gives the smaller share to girls on seven. Frankie was 34% girls here and 58% in America. Robin was 28% here and 56% there. River is the one name that comes out the same in both countries, 37% girls. Sage and Ira lean more to girls here than in America.

A word on Remi and Remy

We count spellings separately, and for Remi that matters. Remy went to 476 boys and 49 girls in England and Wales in 2025. Add the two spellings together and the sound went to 331 girls and 750 boys, 31% girls. Still shared, but no longer even. In America the two together were 67% girls. Either way round, Britain leans to boys and America to girls.

Do shared names stay shared?

We hold two years of English and Welsh files, 2024 and 2025. By the same rule, 39 names were shared in 2024, and 31 of them were still shared in 2025. Six of the 14 evenly shared names were even in both years: Remi, Quinn, Shiloh, Nana, Munachimso and Roux. Most of the 49 go to fewer than 150 babies, so a few dozen babies can move a name a long way. Harlow was 69% girls in 2024 and 58% in 2025.

America lets us look further back. In 1990, 34 names were shared there by the same rule. By 2017 only 11 were still shared. Eight had become mostly girls' names, among them Taylor (52% girls in 1990, 83% in 2017), Avery (39% to 79%) and Skylar (48% to 94%). Nine had become mostly boys' names, among them Jordan, Angel and Ashton, which went from 57% girls to 6%. Six had faded to fewer than 100 babies. Casey stayed shared, but went from 7,392 babies to 830.

That is 23 of 34 that moved one way or the other, or faded, in 27 years. The data shows that it happened. It does not tell us why.

What it means for you

If you want a name that works just as well for a boy or a girl in Britain, the list is short. Remi and Quinn are the biggest evenly shared names here, and each went to a few hundred babies.

If you also want it to read the same way in America, check the table. On most of Britain's shared names, an American will picture a girl. And on America's shared names, someone here will picture a boy. For more names the two countries see differently, try the names Britain and America can't agree on.

All 49 names