Peaky Blinders 'may have inspired' baby name choices

Arthur and Ada have surged in popularity in the past year according to the ONS

Ben Allen

Published: Thursday, 29 August 2019 at 0:02 pm

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The Office for National Statistics says that Peaky Blinders "may have inspired" some of the most popular baby names in England and Wales.

Arthur and Ada, the names of two of the members of the Shelby family played by Paul Anderson and Sophie Rundle, entered the top ten and top 100 respectively for the first time in nearly one hundred years.

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"Arthur surged into the top 10 boys' names for the first time since the 1920s, and Ada jumped into the girls' top 100 for the first time in a century too, both perhaps inspired by characters in the BBC TV drama Peaky Blinders," statistician Nick Stripe said in the official report from the ONS.

Arthur is the seventh most popular boys name, while Ada placed at no.65 for girls.

Elsewhere on the chart, the decline in the use of the name Alexa has been attributed to a consequence of the popularity of Amazon's voice assistant.