How traditional British surnames are dying out: Khan, Ahmed and Ali enter top 10 baby names and replace Taylor, Brown and Johnson
By ANTONIO JARNE CUBERO, DATA JOURNALIST and MILLIE GILES, DATA JOURNALIST and STEPHEN MATTHEWS, ASSOCIATE EDITOR and KRYSTINA SHVEDA - DATA EDITOR, DEEP DIVE
Published: | Updated:
Traditional British surnames are dying out, data exclusively obtained by the Daily Mail reveals.
In 1996, Smith, Jones and Williams were the most common surnames among babies born across England and Wales. Taylor, Brown, Davies, Evans, Thomas, Johnson and Wilson rounded out the top ten.
Three decades later, the top ten surnames among newborns are Smith, Khan, Ahmed, Ali, Jones, Hussain, Singh, Williams, Patel and Kaur.
Although still in the top ten, Jones has dropped 43 per cent in popularity. Williams, now at eighth, has fallen by a similar amount. Other surnames commonplace in the 90s now rank between 11th and 17th.
Khan, Ahmed and Ali have all doubled in popularity, according to data collected by the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
Singh and Kaur, names traditionally taken by Sikh men and women, have risen at least five-fold.
Rob Bates, of the Centre for Migration Control think-tank, told the Daily Mail the data laid bare Britain’s ‘rapid demographic change’.
He said: 'We are at risk of our country being completely unmoored from its heritage and our society becoming increasingly atomised as a result.’
The data covers births registered in England and Wales and excludes surnames with a count of two or fewer.
The data, paid for by the Daily Mail, uses exact spelling, meaning variations of the same surname will appear separately.
Britain’s surnames are also becoming more varied, the data shows. More than 23,400 surnames were recorded in babies in 2025, up from 21,600.
Only 23 surnames were given to a 1,000 or more babies last year, compared with 57 three decades ago.
Smith, the most common surname, fell from being recorded for 7,276 babies to 4,102.
It comes after data this summer revealed Muhammad is, for the third year running, the most popular baby name for boys born in England and Wales.
A total of 5,957 boys were given the specific spelling of Muhammad in 2025, according to the ONS.
Olivia claimed the top spot for girls for the fourth year, while Lily moved up the charts into second place.
Amelia, which had been the second most popular girls' name in 2024, dropped into third, while Noah ranked second for boys, followed by Leo.
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