Baby Names in Wales 2025: 12 Welsh Government-List Matches

An exact-spelling comparison between the Welsh Government’s illustrative Welsh Names for Children page and the Office for National Statistics 2025 Wales top 100 tables produces 12 matches. The girls’ matches are Alys, Erin, Ffion, Efa and Lowri. The boys’ matches are Osian, Harri, Jac, Elis, Dylan, Tomos and Cai.

This is a reproducible cross-match, not a complete list of Welsh names. The government page offers an illustrative finite list; the ONS tables record exact registered spellings for babies whose mothers usually lived in Wales. Joining those two sources can show which listed spellings reached the 2025 top 100. It cannot classify every Welsh name, combine spelling variants or explain why a family chose one.

Olivia and Noah were the overall leaders in Wales

Before narrowing the data, keep the complete tables in view. Olivia ranked first among girls with 140 registrations, while Noah ranked first among boys with 218. The top five in each ONS Wales table are shown below; these are overall results, not results from the government-list comparison.

How to analyse baby names in Wales 2025 with an exact-name cross-match

The Welsh Government page is the finite reference set. It presents illustrative lists under girls’ and boys’ headings rather than claiming to catalogue every Welsh name. The ONS girls’ and boys’ Table 3 worksheets are the measured set: each contains the top 100 Wales ranks, registration counts, change since 2024 and the corresponding England rank.

1. Take every name exactly as written under the relevant government heading.
2. Compare it with the same-sex ONS Wales Table 3 using an exact spelling match.
3. Do not merge variants, translate a name or add or remove a diacritic.
4. Retain every exact match found in the 2025 top 100.

That method returns five girls’ matches and seven boys’ matches. A name absent from the result may still be used in Welsh or have a Welsh history; it simply did not satisfy both conditions in this particular comparison.

All 12 exact government-list matches in the Wales top 100

The table keeps rank, count and year-on-year movement together. A plus sign means the name moved towards rank 1 between 2024 and 2025; a minus sign means it moved down.

How the Wales and England ranks differ

The comparison varies by spelling. Alys ranked 29th in Wales and 1,446th in England; Efa ranked 72nd and 2,701st; Tomos ranked 56th and 3,134th. Other gaps were smaller: Erin ranked 43rd in Wales and 76th in England, while Dylan ranked 36th and 78th.

Those ranks describe positions within two differently sized name distributions. They show that an exact spelling sits differently in the Wales and England tables; they do not measure a family’s language, identity or motivation. Use the comprehensive table above rather than comparing raw registration counts across the two countries.

The six largest positive rank changes among the 12 matches

Alys made the largest rise, moving 24 places from rank 53 in 2024 to 29 in 2025. Harri and Tomos each rose 16 places; Jac rose 15, Efa 12 and Ffion 9. Osian also rose, by seven places, but falls outside this six-name chart.

Why exact spelling and accents matter

ONS ranks the name exactly as registered. Related-looking forms remain separate data points, and a diacritic is part of the spelling. The cross-match follows the same rule: it neither groups variants nor “restores” letters or marks that are absent from an ONS row.

This narrowness is a strength when it is stated clearly. It makes the result repeatable, but it also means the 12 matches are not “the only Welsh names” in the top 100. They are every exact match between one published government list and the relevant ONS tables. For a separate introduction to Welsh spelling in context, read our ten easy Welsh words for beginners. Our guide to cynefin shows why meaning and language history need their own evidence rather than being inferred from a popularity rank.

A five-step method for future ONS releases

1. Define the reference set. Name the external list or rule before searching the ONS workbook.
2. Preserve exact spelling. Keep variants and diacritics separate.
3. Match the correct table. Compare the government girls’ and boys’ headings with the corresponding ONS worksheets.
4. Read rank with count and movement. Each answers a different question.
5. State the boundary. A cross-match describes the two selected sources, not every possible Welsh name or reason for choosing one.

The useful conclusion is precise: the method found 12 exact matches, with Alys highest among the girls’ matches and Osian highest among the boys’. That is a result another reader can reproduce when the next dataset arrives.

Sources, further reading and image credits

• Welsh Government: Welsh Names for Children - the finite illustrative girls’ and boys’ name lists used for the exact-spelling cross-match.
• Office for National Statistics: Baby names in England and Wales, 2025 release, published 9 July 2026.
• ONS girls’ baby-name workbook - Table 3 supplies the girls’ Wales ranks, counts, changes and England comparisons.
• ONS boys’ baby-name workbook - Table 3 supplies the equivalent boys’ figures.
• ONS baby names quality and methodology information - coverage, registration data and methodological limits.
• Open Government Licence v3.0 - licence for the ONS public-sector information used in the original charts.
• Feature image: A sleeping newborn. Photo: Mindy Olson P via Wikimedia Commons, CC0 1.0.
• Inline chart “The leading baby names in Wales, 2025”: Source: Office for National Statistics, Baby names in England and Wales: 2025. Contains public-sector information licensed under OGL v3.0. Graphic: Welsh Words.
• Inline chart “12 exact matches in the Wales top 100”: Exact-name matches between the Welsh Government's illustrative Welsh Names for Children list and the ONS 2025 Wales top 100 tables. Ranks: ONS, OGL v3.0. Cross-match and graphic: Welsh Words. This is not an exhaustive taxonomy of Welsh names.
• Inline chart “Six biggest rises among the 12 matches”: Source: ONS 2025 Wales tables, OGL v3.0. Graphic: Welsh Words. Shows the six largest positive rank changes among the 12 exact government-list matches; movement does not establish cause.