Sarah, Paul, David and Joanne may have fallen out of favour as baby names in recent years, but they still rule the roost at Manchester City Council (MCC).
A freedom of information request has revealed the most frequent first names of 7,000 council employees, with ‘middle aged’ monikers shutting out trendier newcomers.
There are 120 Paul’s working for MCC, with other leading male names including David (118), Michael (113) and Andrew (112) all hitting three figures.
Sarah (168) is by far the most popular name among the council’s female workers, with eight others weighing in with more than 100 instances: Joanne (136), Emma (131), Laura (114), Lisa (108), Nicola (103), Julie (102), Rebecca (102) and Karen (101).
According to Richard Coates, professor emeritus of onomastics – the study of names – at the University of Western England in Bristol, this could be due to modern parents being more creative in naming their children than previous generations.
“Every name on this list is a traditional “English” one [and is] a bit short of Muhammads and variants,” he said. “And also Jacks and Jakes.”
“Modern names show more variety than in earlier times, so those more recently popular for the first time like Kieran, Sean and Dean are less likely to hit big numbers.
“Recent persistent number one Jack may come to belie that – the oldest Jacks of the modern era are about 35 and working their way up the system.
“The lack of Jaydens suggests MCC doesn’t employ anyone under about 15, and the lack of Gilberts suggests the absence of employees over 105.
“I might be more surprised if this turned out to be an analysis of names at all levels of MCC, but it feels like it’s upper- to middle-management oriented.
“Maybe there’s a churn in and out of younger folks looking for their permanent role, so the stats may show an older age profile.”
Professor Coates, who is a former president of the English Place Name Society, expects the spread of names to remain “roughly the same”, but with smaller amounts of each instance as non-traditional names become more prominent.
“Any incomers are likely to go up and then down again fairly quickly, so may not achieve large and lasting numbers,” he added.
