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Lifestyle
Ellie Hutchings

These are the 100 'most beautiful-sounding' baby names, according to science - they're pretty but would you choose one?

A baby looking through the bars of a cot.

A scientific study has revealed 100 of the 'most beautiful-sounding' baby names. Is yours on the list?

Finding the perfect baby name isn't easy - many parents want a cool baby name or a unique baby name that will stand out on the class register, but there are also plenty of names that parents love but don't feel 'cool enough' to use (which is why sticking to the most popular baby names might be preferable).

If you're struggling to settle on the perfect moniker, it turns out science might be able to help. Personalised gift retailer My 1st Years partnered with Associate Professor of Cognitive Linguistics Dr Bodo Winter to perform a study on scientific principles that could potentially indicate how beautiful-sounding a name is.

By looking at a list of the most popular baby names in the UK, they found that certain principles of linguistics and psychological phenomenons do make certain names more phonetically appealing and therefore more 'beautiful-sounding'. Their research resulted in a list of 100 of the most appealing boys' and girls' names.

50 most beautiful-sounding boys names

  1. Zayn
  2. Jesse
  3. Charlie
  4. Louie
  5. William
  6. Freddie
  7. George
  8. Ali
  9. Daniel
  10. Riley
  11. Omar
  12. Arthur
  13. Rowan
  14. Leo
  15. Joseph
  16. Theo
  17. Harry
  18. Noah
  19. Toby
  20. Jude
  21. Isaac
  22. Teddy
  23. Samuel
  24. James
  25. Elijah
  26. Luke
  27. Edward
  28. Logan
  29. Riley
  30. Max
  31. Liam
  32. Roman
  33. Ryan
  34. Jack
  35. Benjamin
  36. Lucas
  37. Henry
  38. Finn
  39. Jacob
  40. Mason
  41. Nathan
  42. Alex
  43. Alexander
  44. Theodore
  45. Adam
  46. David
  47. Hunter
  48. Muhammad
  49. Sebastian
  50. Dylan

50 most beautiful sounding girls names

  1. Sophia
  2. Zoe
  3. Rosie
  4. Sophie
  5. Ivy
  6. Phoebe
  7. Violet
  8. Willow
  9. Hannah
  10. Ellie
  11. Emily
  12. Evelyn
  13. Rose
  14. Eliza
  15. Eva
  16. Chloe
  17. Penelope
  18. Lucy
  19. Ruby
  20. Lily
  21. Olivia
  22. Emma
  23. Eleanor
  24. Bella
  25. Luna
  26. Ella
  27. Thea
  28. Nancy
  29. Isabella
  30. Maya
  31. Amber
  32. Daisy
  33. Amelia
  34. Anna
  35. Georgia
  36. Charlotte
  37. Elizabeth
  38. Maria
  39. Iris
  40. Aurora
  41. Jasmine
  42. Alice
  43. Eden
  44. Jessica
  45. Aria
  46. Harper
  47. Sienna
  48. Grace
  49. Ada
  50. Erin

Explaining how the sounds of names can influence parents' choices, Dr Winter said, "Research by Stephanie Shih shows that parents try to avoid choosing first names that would clash with their family names. If your family name starts with ‘S,’ such as Scott, Smith, Saunders, or Sullivan, it may be advisable not to have a first name that ends in ‘S,’ such as Marcus, Charles, or Nicolas – because the two ‘s’ sounds will blend into each other."

He added, "In another recent paper, Berger and colleagues found… that when there are major hurricanes in the US, the next generation of babies will be more likely to feature sounds that occur in the name of the hurricane, such as Katie after Hurricane Katrina."

He continued, "This seems surprising at first: nobody would want to name their child after a devastating natural disaster, of course! But when a particularly dangerous hurricane wreaks havoc over a country, the name of the hurricane will be mentioned again and again in the media. This means that we are exposed more to the same sounds, and it is known from psychological research that things that are more familiar to us are generally liked more, a phenomenon known as the ‘mere exposure effect.’ As a result, the speech sounds contained in hurricane names are actually more likely to crop up in names of the next generation."

While the research suggests that some baby names are indeed more beautiful-sounding than others, there are a lot of factors that contribute to how appealling a name can really be - from cultural influences to gender and family history.

If you're still searching for that perfect baby name, why not give our baby name generator a whirl or this Tinder for baby names app? You can also find inspiration in the oddest of places, from country music to these priceless millionaire baby names!

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