Having a baby is an exciting time for any expectant parents, from first finding out you are pregnant to meeting every mile stone along the way there’s so much to look forward to. There will be lots of decisions along the journey, with what to name your baby being an important and special choice to make.
For decades popular culture has inspired names for newborns, you only need to track celebrity star rises alongside baby name data to see a correlation with names being inspired in this way. The STYLEetc. team did some digging to see how popular fashion and beauty brands have inspired new parents. We looked at ONS data from 1999 to 2021 for England and Wales and listed the top names associated with brands or designers, see the detailed results below.
The Top Fashion Inspired Baby Names
For girls in England and Wales Chloe proved to be a popular choice for names in the last few decades. Nodding to the luxury fashion house, Chloe has proved inspirational for many parents and Kris Jenner even claimed it is the namesake of her reality star daughter Khloe Kardashian. Other common choices for girl names included standout choices like Chanel, Celine and even Dior.
Some names had great popularity in particular eras, Isabel had a surge in demand from the early 2000s to the early 2010s. Victoria also saw huge traction through the 1990s to early 2000s, proving the influence of our forever fashion inspiration Victoria Beckham, aka Posh Spice.
Louis was the most popular boy baby name inspired by fashion. Long before it was the moniker of Prince William’s youngest son, Louis drew connotations to famous fashion house Louis Vuitton. Louis spiked in popularity in the early 2000s, coinciding with the ride of the iconic LV logo bags and accessories which you couldn’t avoid in the height of noughties fashion.
The boy list provides some cute inspiration for more alternate boy names with additions like Hugo, Levi and Karl. On the rise in recent years is Tommy, along with Hunter which has seen a massive increase in registrations the past decade.
The Top Beauty Inspired Baby Names
Beauty-inspired baby names prove to be a wonderful source of creative inspiration for expectant parents, with some fantastic variety amongst the most common names in our lists. For girls Anastasia was, by far, the most in-demand name relating to the beauty world. Not only did the name take the ‘most popular beauty name of all time’ title, but it has also seen a massive surge in registrations since 2015. In 2021 alone there were 369 babies names Anastasia.
Key beauty brands proved to be a prime source of creative inspiration across the board for girls’ names, with popular choices including: Chanel, Bobbi, Huda and Dior. There were even babies names more unusual choices Sephora and Nyx.
Boy names also follow the trend of parents looking to brands for name ideas, with popular choices including: Mac, Giorgio and Bobbi (again). Max was the most popular boys’ name, whilst it is a classic name choice parents are no doubt reminded of it in brands like Max Factor.
Looking at trends for boys’ names showed a perhaps surprising rise for the names Mac and Dior. Giorgio was additionally shown to be on the up year-on-year. More unusual names that made the list (albeit in smaller volumes) were Avon and Rimmel.
Whether you are a traditionalist or looking for more unusual choices for your baby name, our research proves looking to inspiration across fashion and beauty gives some lovely choices to consider. Have these lists given you ideas for your future baby names? Join the conversation on social media and let us know.
