Here are the top Christmas baby names for the festive season 2018

For those babies due this festive season, 62% of parents across the country have revealed that they will choose a traditional name for their winter-born bundle while 38% will go for more modern and unusual choices.

The new baby names survey, which quizzed hundreds of UK parents on their choice of baby name for this Christmas, was commissioned by Emma’s Diary (www.emmasdiary.co.uk), the essential support resource for mums to be and new parents.

Faye Mingo, Marketing Director at Emma’s Diary commented: “Interestingly for girls names, Ivy and Holly remain ever-popular at this time of year, while the draw of more traditional names is growing too.

"Choosing a name for your baby takes a lot of thought and planning and as our poll shows, many of us are very much influenced by our own family name traditions too.”

The results found a trend in royal names such as Arthur, George, William and Harry for baby boys and Charlotte, Victoria and Meghan for the girls.

Another trend is that of the Christmas season itself, for girls, festive favourite Ivy, made the top spot again this year (having been voted the number one baby name for Christmas 2017).

This was closely followed by Holly, which also took the number two spot for the second year running.

When it comes to seasonal influences, 43% of parents surveyed said the season and time of year could have an impact on the name they choose for their new arrival. In line with this, Christmas-themed names such as Nicholas, Gabriel, Angel, Star, Noelle and Robyn also made the list.

Third place for both genders was taken by a more biblical route, with Joseph and Eva taking top spots.

Almost one-third of parents polled (30%) said they are influenced by their own traditional ‘family names’ too when making the choice, while 8% of parents say they’re influenced by their friends’ opinions.

A whopping 60% say they simply choose names they like, and only 2% of us will admit to being influenced by celebrity baby names.

The full list of the top baby names below:

TOP BOYS NAMES:

1.Arthur

2.Harry

3.Joseph

4.George

5.Gabriel

6.Nicholas

7.Thomas

8. Matthew

9. Christopher

10. Noelle

11. William

12. Alfred

13. Olwen

TOP GIRLS NAMES:

1.Ivy

2.Holly

3.Eva

4.Alice

5.Charlotte

6.Robyn

7.Elsa

8.Meghan

9.Natalie

10.Angel

11.Victoria

12.Star

13. Eugenie