REVEALED: The 50 most beautiful baby names backed by science… with Sophia and Matthew topping the list
- Linguists have determined which baby names sound the most beautiful in the US and UK
- The research used a list of the top 100 names for both genders and regions
- They then broke down each name by syllable and determined whether it evoked emotion when spoken aloud
- While Sophia is the prettiest in the US, Americans tend to like more names that start with “E”.
- It has been found that the names of male royals sound the most beautiful in the United Kingdom
Science has taken the guesswork out of choosing the best-sounding baby names for parents in the United States and the United Kingdom.
Conducted by the University of Birmingham, the study used phonetics, which examines the sounds, patterns and structure of human speech, and ranked names based on how much emotion they evoke when spoken.
It turned out that the name Sophia topped the lists for girls’ names in the US and UK – while Matthew and Zayn topped the lists for boys in their respective countries.
Although research suggests that some baby names sound nicer than others, there are other factors that play a role in how nice a name sounds, including cultural influences, gender, and family history.
The research was carried out by Dr. Bodo Winter, who is an associate professor of cognitive linguists at the university.
Winter also found that names beginning with the letter “E” were easier on the ears — Ellie, Emily, Evelyn, Eva, and Elena ranked ninth through thirteen.
And vegetation-inspired names also made it into the running: Ivy, Lily, and Violet all placed in the top 25
Matthew, number one, means “gift from God,” and Winter said it has many positive connotations when said out loud.
Julian, William, Isaiah and Leo rounded out the top 5 most beautiful sounding boy names in the US.
Scroll down for the full list of names
The most beautiful girl name in both the US and UK is Sophia, but both nations also enjoy the sounds of Ivy, Violet, Ella and Amelia
Across the Atlantic, male royal names sounded the prettiest, with Louie, William and George all finishing fourth, fifth and seventh in the top ten.
Harry narrowly misses the top ten, ranking 17th as the most beautiful sounding boy name in the UK.
For girls, names ending in “ee” proved popular after Zoe and Rosie took second and third, with other top 10 entries including Sophie in fourth, Ivy in fifth,
Winter began this work by building on a study published in 2018 by the University of Warwick, which analyzed words, rather than names, to determine which trigger emotions.
“Using an exciting piece of sound symbolism research by Adelman et al. (2018) as a starting point, we evaluated a number of the world’s most popular baby names to rank them,” Winter shared.
“The names that ranked highest evoked the most positive emotions when spoken aloud, and therefore probably sound the most beautiful to the human ear.”
Using 2018 research as a blueprint, Winter compiled the top 100 names for boys and girls in the two regions and translated each one phonetically, breaking each name into syllables, capitalizing the letter sounds that are stressed when the name is pronounced could.
Names that could not be translated in this way were excluded from the study.
“Once we had a list of the top 50 baby names for boys and girls in the UK and US, we proceeded to rank each name,” Winter said.
“Finally, we calculated the sum of each name’s score and used these final numbers to rank each list of the top 50 names.”
According to science, the most beautiful sounding names in the US and UK
Boys and girls names in the USA
1. Matthew / Sophia
2. Julian / Zoë
3. William / Always
4. Isaiah / Sophie
5. Leo / Riley
6. Levi / Ivy
7. Joseph / Paisley
8. Theo / Willow
9. Isaac / Ellie
10.Samuel/Emily
11. Miles / Evelyn
12. James / Eve
13. Elijah / Elena
14. Luke / Chloe
15. Noah / Nova
16. Santiago / Penelope
17. Owen / Lucia
18. Logan / Lily
19.Liam/Olivia
20. Novel / Naomi
21.Ryan/Emma
22. Cooper / Natalie
23. Jack / Sofia
24. Outsiders / Eleanor
25. Anthony / Violet
26. Ezekiel / Bella
27. Carter / Luna
28. Benjamin / Ella
29. Luke / Victoria
30. Henry Isabella
31. Jacob / Maya
32.Lincoln / Natalia
33. Mason / Amelia
34. Nathan / Savannah
35. Asher/Charlotte
36. Jackson / Stella
37. Andrew / Hazel
38. Cameron / Athena
39. Alexander / Mary
40 Theodore / Autumn
41. Adam / Kennedy
42. Gabriel / Aurora
43. Kingston / Alice
44. Daniel / Aria
45.David/Harper
46. Hunter / Serenity
47. Dylan / Nora
48. Muhammad / Mercy
49. Sebastian / Elizabeth
50. Adrian / Hanna
Boys and girls names in UK
1. Zain / Sophia
2. Jesse / Zoë
3.Charlie/Rosie
4. Louie / Sophie
5. William / Ivy
6.Freddie/Phoebe
7. George / Violet
8. Ali Willow
9. Daniel / Hanna
10.Riley/Ellie
11. Omar / Emily
12. Arthur / Evelyn
13. Rowan / Rose
14. Leo / Elisha
15. Joseph / Eve
16. Theo / Chloë
17. Harry / Penelope
18. Noah / Lucy
19. Toby / Ruby
20. Jew / Lily
21. Isaac / Olivia
22.Teddy/Emma
23. Samuel / Eleanor
24.James/Bella
25. Elijah / Luna
26. Luke / Ella
27. Edward / Thea
28. Logan / Nancy
29.Riley/Isabella
30. Max / Maya
31. Liam/Amber
32. Novel / Daisies
33.Ryan/Amelia
34. Jack / Anna
35. Benjamin / Georgia
36. Luke / Charlotte
37. Henry / Elizabeth
38. Finn / Maria
39. Jacob / Iris
40. Mason / Aurora
41. Nathan / Jasmine
42. Alex / Alice
43. Alexander / Eden
44. Theodor / Jessica
45. Adam / Aria
46. David / Harper
47. Hunter / Siena
48. Muhammad / Mercy
49. Sebastian / Ada
50. Dylan/Erin