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English names arepersonal names used in, or originating in,England.In England, as elsewhere in theEnglish-speaking world, a complete name usually consists of one or moregiven names, commonly referred to as first names, and a (most commonlypatrilineal, rarelymatrilineal)family name or surname, also referred to as a last name. The given names after the first are often referred to asmiddle names.^[1]

Few given names used in England have English derivations. Many names are ofHebrew (Daniel,David,Elizabeth,Susan) orGreek (Nicholas,Dorothy,George, andHelen) origin. Some areGermanic names, sometimes adopted via the transmission ofFrench (Robert,Richard,Gertrude,Charlotte) or originate from Indo-European (Adrian,Amelia,Patrick) or Celtic.

A small fraction of given names has an actual English derivation (seeAnglo-Saxon names), such asAlfred,Ashley,Edgar,Edmund,Edward,Edwin,Harold andOswald. A distinctive feature of Anglophone names is the surnames of important families used as given names, originally to indicate political support or patronage. Many examples have now become normal names chosen because parents like them, and any political sense lost. Most are male names like Cecil, Gerald^{[citation needed]}, Howard, Percy, Montague, Stanley or Gordon, though some have female versions like Cecilia or Geraldine. Other languages have few equivalents, although the saint's surname Xavier is often used by Roman Catholics.

During the majority of the 19th century, the most popular given names wereMary for girls and eitherJohn orWilliam for boys. Throughout the Early Modern period, the diversity of given names was comparatively small; the three most popular male given names represented nearly 50% of the male population throughout this period. For example, of the boys born in London in the year 1510, 24.4% were namedJohn, 13.3% were namedThomas and 11.7% were named William.^[2] A trend towards more diversity in given names began in the mid-19th century, and by 1900, only 22.9% of the newborn boys, and 16.2% of the newborn girls in the UK shared the top three given names for each gender. The trend continued during the 20th century, and by 1994, these figures had fallen to 11% and 8.6%, respectively. This trend is a result of a combination of greaterindividualism in the choice of names, and the increasingethnic heterogeneity of the UK population, which led to a wider range of frequent given names from non-European traditions. Oliver and Olivia were the most popular baby names in England and Wales^[3] in 2018.

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According to Christopher Daniell, in 1140 marked what might be the first recorded use of a modern surname, inherited by multiple generations. These were not always regularly formed: for example, the sons of a certain French named Robert used a modern inheritable surname,FitzGerald, in honour of an earlier relative, namedGerald.^[4]

While it is normal for a child to be given one of their parents' surnames, traditionally the father's (or increasingly some combination of the two), there is nothing in UK law that explicitly requires this. Under English common law, a person may use any name as a legal name, though most people use their birth name (as registered on theRegister of Births, Marriages and Deaths, regulated by theRegistration of Births and Deaths Regulations 1987, which allows only characters that are used in English or Welsh), often using a spouse's surname (proved with a marriage certificate), or (if an adult) a name formally declared bydeed poll. No regulations include any specific provisions regarding what names are acceptable. Nonetheless, theGeneral Register Office and various organizations that help with creating and enrolling deed polls will reject anything that is unreasonable (racist, offensive, fraudulent, implying a title of nobility not held, unpronounceable, not in the Latin script, etc.).

Double-barrelled names may be formed for a variety of reasons, including combining of spouses' surnames upon marriage or, more commonly in the past, adding another family's surname as a condition of inheritance.^[5]

Compound surnames in English feature two or more words, often joined by a hyphen or hyphens: for example,Henry Hepburne-Scott. A few families have three or four words making up their surname, such asCharles Hepburn-Stuart-Forbes-Trefusis, 21st Baron Clinton andAlexander Charles Robert Vane-Tempest-Stewart, 9th Marquess of Londonderry. However, it is not unusual for compound surnames to be composed of separate words not linked by a hyphen, for exampleIain Duncan Smith, a former leader of theConservative Party, whose surname is "Duncan Smith".

• List of the most common surnames in Europe

• English SurnamesArchived 2017-01-31 at theWayback Machine (about.com)
• Given Names in England Before 1800
• Seven Types of English Surnames
• Baby names in England and Wales: 2018 Most popular first names for baby boys and girls in 2018 using birth registration data (Office of National Statistics)

• Names by country
• English names
• English given names

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