1700 - William III (famously known as William of Orange) is on the throne. This year, William Congreve's comedy The Way of the World is first performed in London and an English translation of the novel Don Quixote is first published.
Below are the top 50 first names for boys and girls born in 1700 in England and Wales according to Leslie Dunkling in The Guinness Book of Names, 6th Edition (1993).
Variants have been grouped together under their most frequent form.
| 1 | John | 1 | Mary | |
| 2 | William | 2 | Elizabeth | |
| 3 | Thomas | 3 | Ann | |
| 4 | Richard | 4 | Sarah | |
| 5 | James | 5 | Jane | |
| 6 | Robert | 6 | Margaret | |
| 7 | Joseph | 7 | Susan | |
| 8 | Edward | 8 | Martha | |
| 9 | Henry | 9 | Hannah | |
| 10 | George | 10 | Catherine | |
| 11 | Samuel | 11 | Alice | |
| 12 | Francis | 12 | Frances | |
| 13 | Charles | 13 | Eleanor | |
| 14 | Daniel | 14 | Dorothy | |
| 15 | Benjamin | 15 | Rebecca | |
| 16 | Edmund | 16 | Isabel | |
| 17 | Matthew | 17 | Grace | |
| 18 | Peter | 18 | Joan | |
| 19 | Nicholas | 19 | Rachel | |
| 20 | Isaac | 20 | Agnes | |
| 21 | Christopher | 21 | Ellen | |
| 22 | Abraham | 22 | Maria | |
| 23 | Stephen | 23 | Lydia | |
| 24 | Jonathan | 24 | Ruth | |
| 25 | Philip | 25= | Deborah | |
| 26 | Michael | 25= | Judith | |
| 27 | Hugh | 27= | Esther | |
| 28 | Joshua | 27= | Joanna | |
| 29 | Anthony | 29= | Amy | |
| 30 | Ralph | 29= | Marjorie | |
| 31 | Andrew | 29= | Phoebe | |
| 32 | David | 32 | Jenny | |
| 33 | Simon | 33= | Barbara | |
| 34 | Roger | 33= | Bridget | |
| 35 | Alexander | 35 | Fanny | |
| 36 | Jacob | 36 | Lucy | |
| 37 | Laurence | 37= | Betty | |
| 38 | Moses | 37= | Eliza | |
| 39 | Nathaniel | 37= | Nancy | |
| 40 | Walter | 40 | Emma | |
| 41 | Aaron | 41 | Charlotte | |
| 42 | Jeremy | 42= | Dinah | |
| 43 | Owen | 42= | Sally | |
| 44 | Mark | 44= | Harriet | |
| 45 | Timothy | 44= | Jemima | |
| 46 | Adam | 44= | Kitty | |
| 47 | Martin | 44= | Mary Ann | |
| 48 | Josiah | 48= | Caroline | |
| 49 | Luke | 48= | Peggy | |
| 50 | Harry | 48= | Sophia | |
Please note: Statutory birth registrations in England and Wales came into effect mid-1837 so there is no official data prior to this. Dunkling does not explain where the above data is taken from or how large the data range is. Is it from a single parish? A whole county? Several parishes across England and Wales?
However, the top half of this list, at least, is very similar to Smith-Bannister's top 50 for 1690-1700 from forty English parishes, taken from "family reconstitution data and evidence from records of baptism (sometimes birth) detailed in parish registers and a sample size of 122,710."
Notable differences appear in the bottom half of the lists, especially the female names:-
Names in Smith-Bannister's top 50 (1690-1700), but not in Dunkling's top 50 (1700):
Jonas (#36), Cornelius (#39), Cuthbert (#43), Solomon #43), Rose (#26), Thomasin (#28), Joyce (#31), Abigail (#34), Patience (#34), Hester* (#36), Mercy (#38), Wilmot (#38), Christian (#41), Easter* (#41), Rosamund (#41), Beatrice (#46), Edith (#46), Grisel (#46), Ursula (#46)
* Dunkling may have combined Hester and Easter with Esther.
Names in Dunklings top 50 (above) but not in Smith-Bannister's top 50 (1690-1700):
Hugh* (#27) Nathaniel* (#39), Aaron* (#41), Jeremy* (#42),Owen† (#43), Mark*, Martin* (#47), Josiah* (#48), Luke* (#49), Harry‡ (#50) Jenny‡ (#32), Fanny‡ (#35), Betty‡ (#37), Eliza‡ (#37), Nancy‡ (#37), Emma* (#40), Charlotte (#41), Sally‡ (#42), Harriet (#44), Jemima (#44), Kitty‡ (#44), Mary Ann‡ (#44), Caroline (#48), Peggy‡ (#48), Sophia (#48)
* All of these names appear in earlier years for Smith-Bannister's rankings so were certainly in use.
† Smith-Bannister only looks at English data; Owen was most likely from Welsh data Dunkling gathered.
‡ Smith-Bannister may have combined these diminutives with their parent-forms (Henry, Jane, Frances, Elizabeth, Ann, Sarah, Catherine and Margaret)
