Top 100 in both countries, opposite ends

Arthur is the fifth most popular boys' name in England and Wales. In America it is 87th. Emma is the third most popular girls' name in America. Here it is 85th. Both names are in the top 100 on both sides of the Atlantic, and both are 82 places apart.

Last time we looked at the names that make one country's top 100 and not the other's. This is the other half of the list: the 92 names that are in both. 42 boys' names and 50 girls'. You might expect the two countries to broadly agree about them. They do not. Only three sit at exactly the same rank in both lists: Olivia at number one, Noah at two and Ava at eleven. Thirteen are within five places. Half of the 92 are 23 places apart or more, and 17 are 50 or more.

The seventeen furthest apart

The chart draws each of those 17 as a line from its rank in England and Wales to its rank in America. First place is at the top on both sides. A line that runs downhill is a name Britain likes more; a line that runs uphill is a name America likes more.

Five of the 17 lean British. Arthur, fifth here and 87th there. Theo, 12th and 82nd. Sienna, 15th and 94th. Daisy, 18th and 75th. Maeve, 26th and 76th.

Twelve lean American, and they start at the very top. Liam is the most popular boys' name in the United States and 68th in England and Wales. Emma is third there and 85th here. Eliana is tenth and 62nd, Benjamin 11th and 61st, Elias 13th and 69th, Elizabeth 17th and 74th, Nora 20th and 75th, Michael 21st and 85th, Hazel 21st and 71st, Chloe 23rd and 89th, Scarlett 32nd and 93rd, Carter 45th and 97th.

So America's number one boys' name and number three girls' name both scrape into the British top 100 near the bottom. Britain does not do that to America. Of the shared names, the highest British one that America puts in the bottom half of its list is Arthur, at fifth. Every shared name above it, Olivia, Noah, Lily, Leo, Amelia, Luca, Isla, is in America's top 30.

Sixty to twenty-nine

Take all 92 shared names and ask which country ranks each one higher. America wins 60 of them. Britain wins 29. The other three are the ties. That is not close, and it is the same lopsidedness we found last time from the other direction: the names the two countries share sit near the top of America's lists and are spread all the way down Britain's.

The numbers are plain. 42 of the 92 shared names are in America's top 25. 27 are in Britain's. Nine of them are in the bottom quarter of America's lists, 76th to 100th. Sixteen are in the bottom quarter of Britain's. The typical shared name sits 29th in America and 41st or 42nd here.

Put another way, of the 50 names in America's two top 25s, 42 are British top-100 names. The eight that are not are Mateo, Levi, John, Julian, Ailany, Camila and two more. Of the 50 in Britain's two top 25s, 27 are American top-100 names. The other 23 start with Muhammad at number one and run through George, Oscar, Freddie, Archie, Florence, Freya, Poppy and Elsie. Britain fills the top of its list with names America does not rank, and the shared names get pushed down.

The names Britain likes more are the ones America is catching up on

Here is the part we did not expect. Of the 29 shared names that Britain ranks higher, 25 have climbed in America since 2015. Ten years ago the typical one was 130th in America. Now it is 61st. Eighteen of the 29 were not in the American top 100 at all in 2015. They are all in it now.

Theo was 406th in America in 2015 and is 82nd now. Maeve went from 452nd to 76th, Millie from 469th to 73rd, Arthur from 292nd to 87th. These are not names America has always had and ranked a bit lower. They are names America barely used ten years ago and has just started to. The big gaps on the chart are big because the American line is still on its way up. Luca shows where it ends: 157th in America in 2015, 14th now, fourth here, a gap of ten places and closing. Theodore has gone further still, 99th to fourth, and is now five places above its British rank of ninth.

The four that fell in America are the odd ones out, and they are a set: Jacob, fourth in America in 2015 and 43rd now, Joshua 33rd to 66th, Isaac 31st to 47th and Grace 19th to 38th. Jacob is falling here too, 30th in 2024 to 41st in 2025, 1,484 babies to 1,258. Britain ranks it higher only because America dropped it faster.

On the British side these 29 names are steady. They went to 44,833 babies in England and Wales in 2024 and 43,880 in 2025, down 2%, and births overall fell 1.6%. Eleven went up, 17 went down, one stayed put. The biggest moves were Maya, 1,592 babies to 1,259, and Luca, 2,814 to 3,266. The gap between the two countries on these names is closing, and it is closing from America's side.

The names America likes more are the ones Britain is letting go

The other 60 are a different story. In America they are settled: the typical one was 23rd or 24th in 2015 and is 21st now. In Britain, 44 of the 60 went to fewer babies in 2025 than in 2024. Between them they went to 64,649 babies in 2024 and 61,154 in 2025, a fall of 5.4% in a year when births fell 1.6%.

Emma is the one to stare at. Third in America. In England and Wales it was 69th in 2024 and is 85th in 2025, 666 babies down to 536. The 100th girls' name in England and Wales, Frankie, went to 462. Emma is 74 babies clear of the bottom of the list. Chloe went 72nd to 89th, Scarlett 79th to 93rd, Mason 63rd to 77th. Further up, Mia is sixth in America and slipped from 14th to 21st here, 1,609 babies to 1,372. Emily went 34th to 44th, Ethan 48th to 54th.

Not all 60 are fading here. Sixteen went up, and the ones that went up most are the ones arriving from America. Eliana was 116th in England and Wales in 2024 and is 62nd now, 416 babies to 736. It is tenth in America. Eleanor went 67th to 56th, Nora 86th to 75th, Elias 79th to 69th, and Carter came in from 103rd to 97th. So the traffic runs both ways. America is picking up Arthur, Theo and Maeve. Britain is picking up Eliana, Nora and Elias, and putting down Emma, Chloe and Mason.

The names they agree on

Thirteen of the 92 are within five places of each other, and the top of both lists is where most of them are. Olivia is first in both countries. Noah is second in both. Ava is eleventh in both. Amelia is third here and fourth there, Oliver sixth and third, Isabella tenth and seventh, Evelyn 12th and eighth, Theodore ninth and fourth. Lower down, Thomas is 35th here and 34th there, Jacob 41st and 43rd, Mila 40th and 43rd, Iris 57th and 61st, and Maria 88th and 87th.

That is the shape of it. The two countries agree about a handful of names at the very top, Olivia, Noah, Amelia, Oliver, Theodore, and then go their own ways. What this article adds to the last one is that the disagreement is not standing still. Where Britain is ahead, America is catching up. Where America is ahead, Britain is moving off. We can show you that this is what the last ten years look like. We cannot tell you what the next ten will, and we are not going to guess.

A word on the years

The rankings on both sides are the latest available: the 2025 file for England and Wales and the most recent American release. The 2015 American ranks come from that year's top 1,000, so a name we describe as 406th in 2015 was 406th among American boys that year. The 2024 British ranks and counts are from the 2024 file. Every name in this article went to at least 400 babies in England and Wales in both years, well above the point where the official rank stops meaning much.

Boys and girls are counted separately throughout. When we say Arthur is fifth, that is fifth among boys, and Emma's 85th is 85th among girls. The 92 shared names are 42 boys' names and 50 girls', and no name is counted twice.