The Top 50 Names in England 1377-1381

In 1377-1381, the Hundred Years wars have been raging for forty years, and Edward III has just died after his 50-year reign, leaving his grandson, Richard, as heir. 

Below are the top 50 national totals for first names for men and women living in 1377-81 in England, collated by George Redmonds in Christian Names in Local and Family History (2004). 

His frequency tables have been compiled from male names from 10 counties and female names from 10 counties in the Poll Tax returns of 1377-81. 1000 male and 1000 female names were counted from each county and have been combined to produce a national total of 10,000 names for each gender. 
For his overall ranks, Redmonds has not included any male names with totals under three or female names with totals under nine. An examination of some of the rarer regional variations will be looked at in a later post. 

As Redmonds point out, "Because those who were being taxed were adults, the names testify to practices a generation earlier."

Redmonds has also given each name a "classification of popularity", listed below:

 

1	John	3532	Extremely popular	1	Alice	1714	Extremely popular
2	William	1834		2	Agnes	1433
3	Thomas	945	Very popular	3	Joan	1239
4	Richard	831		4	Matilda	654	Very popular
5	Robert	741		5	Isabel	465
6	Henry	334	Popular	6	Margaret	435
7	Roger	306		7	Emme	409
8	Walter	240		8	Marg' *	281	Popular
9	Adam	178	Quite popular	9	Margery	279
10	Nicholas	163		10	Ellen	278
11	Hugh	104		11	Julian	238
12	Geoffrey	85		12	Cecile	229
13	Simon	81		13	Christine	208
14	Ralph	69		14	Katherine	178	Quite popular
15	Peter	62		15	Edith	142
16	Stephen	50	Infrequent	16	Amice	125
17	Gilbert	34		17	Elizabeth	112
17	Philip	34		18	Beatrice	110
19	Reginald	32		19	Magot *	99
20	David	29		20	Sarah	78
21	Laurence	27		21	Sybil	74
22	James	20		22	Felice	72
23	Edmund	19		22	Christian	72
24	Alan	16		24	Avice	71
25	Denis	15		25	Denise	64
25	Michael	15		26	Is' *	62
25	Alexander	15		27	Isolde	60
28	Matthew	12		28	Lucy	46	Infrequent
28	Andrew	12		29	Petronille	39
30	Edus (?)	10		29	Rose	36
31	Giles	8	Rare	29	Mariot *	34
31	Benedict	8		32	Mabel	30
33	Edward	7		32	Lettice	30
34	Luke	6		34	Constance	27
34	George	6		35	Anne	24
34	Gregory	6		35	Idony	24
34	Clement	6		37	Eve	22
38	Elias	5		38	Annabel	21
38	Bartholomew	5		39	Marion	20
40	Martin	4		40	Eleanor	19
40	Jena	4		41	Ibot *	18
40	Nigel	4		41	Mag' *	18
43	Randolph	3		43	Evita *	14
43	Madok	3		44	Clemence	13
43	Maurice	3		45	Agatha	12
43	Griffin	3		46	Helwise	11
43	Gervase	3		46	Godelena	11
43	Eyvyn	3		48	Lora	10
43	Hamond	3		49	Mary	9	Rare
43	Stacey	3		49	Margr' *	9

 

* "The evidence shows that clerks readily used abbreviations that could stand for more than one name and, since these cannot be identified, the totals in a few cases are seriously affected. The most obvious problems are Marg' for either Margaret or Margery and Is' which could be for either Isabel or Isolde. Less important numerically was 'Cris' which could be for either Christian or Christine, two names that are usually listed separately in dictionaries. There may have been a distinction, for the daughter of Robert de Gowtby of Noseley in Leicestershire was first names Christiana and then Crystina. Perhaps the spellings represented scribal preferences, since Christine was particularly frequent in the south coast counties of Kent and Dorset but missing from some counties in the Midlands and North, were Christian was more usual.

The clerks also employed many diminutives, and it has been thought safer to list these variations independently. Magot is the most important of these but Mariot, Ibot, Evita, Colet, Evot, Annot and Ammot are others that affect the overall counts. This helps to explain why the list of women's names is longer than the men's but, even if we ignore the abbreviations and diminutives, there were still more female names in use, and more of them were 'popular'."