If you’re hoping to raise the next Alan Sugar or Deborah Meaden, you might want to consider what you name your baby.
An analysis by digital marketing experts at Add People has revealed what they’ve dubbed “the most successful baby names” of 2023, after identifying the most common names for business owners in the UK and matching them up with popular baby names trends for 2023.
“Studies find that a name can correlate to academic performance, behaviour and hiring so choosing the right name for your child is a major choice they will carry with them their whole lives,” said Peter Marshall, Add People’s chief marketing officer.
A 2011 LinkedIn study found that men with shorter names are overrepresented in top management positions, while women more often use the full version of their name in high-level jobs – and this new analysis found a similar pattern.
Most successful female baby names of 2023
- Phoebe
- Olivia
- Sofia
- Freya
- Ella
- Florence
- Ava
- Amelia
- Ivy
- Layla
Most successful male baby names of 2023
- Harry
- Jack
- Oliver
- Noah
- Muhammad
- Leo
- Jacob
- Arthur
- George
- Archie
The analysis suggests that successful women are more likely to have less popular names compared to men.
Three of the most common names for female entrepreneurs featured below the top UK’s 20 most popular female baby names, compared with none of the most common names for male entrepreneurs.
“Having worked with thousands of small business owners over the years, it’s interesting to see patterns in their names that could reflect their drive and commitment to building their own companies,” Marshall concluded.
In 2016, Albert Mehrabian, professor emeritus of psychology at the University of California, published a paper called the The Baby Name Report Card: Beneficial and Harmful Baby Names, in which he weighed up people’s perceptions of different names.
At the time, the top 10 girl names connoting “a successful person” were:
- Jacqueline
- Morgan
- Elizabeth
- Katherine
- Victoria
- Lauraine
- Susan
- Catherine
- Kate
- Madeleine
And the boys’ names were:
- Steven
- Ross
- Christopher
- James
- Robert
- David
- Kenneth
- Parker
- Thomas
- Madison