Kevin Schurer
According to the Office of National Statistics (ONS), in 2023 – the latest year for which information has been published – the top five most popular babies’ names for boys were, in descending rank order, Muhammad, Noah, Oliver, George and Leo, and for girls, Olivia Amelia, Isla, Lily and Freya. With the exception of George, such a list of names would have been appeared strange 50 years ago, and almost unthinkable a century ago.
Tags: names, naming practices, parish registers, poll tax, popular names, social history
Posted in Kevin Schurer | No Comments »
Chris Briggs
What do you know about population change in the English Middle Ages (c.1000-c.1500 AD)? Quite possibly, you have an inkling that the couple of centuries or so following the arrival of the Normans in 1066 were an era of steady growth in numbers. Almost certainly you know that that growth came to a juddering halt in the middle of the 14th century with the Black Death of 1348-9, and further outbreaks of plague and epidemic disease in the decades that followed.
Tags: demography, marriage, medieval, medieval history, middle ages, poll tax, social history
Posted in Chris Briggs | No Comments »
age at marriage agricultural revolution census coal death demographic transition demography disease economic history English peasants extended family family history family size family tree famine fertility fossil fuels genealogies households industrial revolution marriage medieval medieval history middle ages migration mortality naming practices occupational structure occupations old age old people parish registers plague poll tax poor laws population size service social history surnames urbanisation wages women's employment women's history women's work work
© 2025 University of Cambridge
The Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure