Naming your children can be tricky, with so many options out there – do you go back a few decades for a , plump for , or even shake those off and go for a ? Then there are , too, so how do you choose just one? At the risk of giving you even more food for thought, new research suggests that names from classic myths and legends could be undergoing a revival. The personalised number plate provider has looked at the baby names registered in the UK from 1996 to 2022, and found that names from ancient mythologies, including , Norse, and Egyptian, have gradually increased in popularity. Names like Leonidas, Odin, Osiris, Hera, Persephone and Juno were all essentially unheard of outside of mythology in the ‘90s and early ‘00s, but since then more babies have been given names along these lines.
Film and TV could be one factor in this rise in popularity. Take the Marvel Cinematic University, with characters like Thor, Loki and Odin. Meanwhile, Leonidas rose in popularity after 2007, when Gerard Butler played the Spartan leader in 300, while Achilles became more popular after Brad Pitt played the Greek hero three years before.
Other boys’ names to become more popular include Ares, the Greek god of war and courage, and Apollo, the god of archery, music, dance and light. Among girls, Artemis – goddess of the hunt, wilderness, wild animals, nature, childbirth, and care of children – has risen in popularity as a name. Diana, her Roman counterpart, is also rising up the ranks - though this could in part also be down to .
Athena, the goddess of war, has become more common, as has Freya, the Norse goddess of love and beauty. And Juno, the Roman goddess of marriage and queen of the gods, has risen in popularity too, perhaps due to the 2008 movie starring Elliot Page as the titular character. And after Maisie Williams began playing Arya Stark in Game of Thrones in 2011, an average of just 14 girls per year being given the name increased to an average of 275 each year afterwards, while an average of 232 boys have been given the name Jax every year since 2008, when Jax Teller, the main character in the US drama Sons of Anarchy, first appeared on our screens.
These mythological names might be a tad removed from the more traditional names you might have on your list, but if you like names with a nod to history, they’re well worth considering..
