The most used girls' names beginning with I in 2025

Three of the ten most popular girls' names in England and Wales begin with I. Isla is fourth, Ivy ninth and Isabella tenth, and together they account for 5,347 babies. The letter as a whole covers 13,103 girls across 273 spellings. That concentration at the very top is unusual: no other letter puts three names inside the girls' top ten.

ONS rank (all girls' names)	Name	Babies in 2025	Meaning and origin
4	Isla	1,959	Scottish, from the island of Islay or the River Isla; a place name before a personal one
9	Ivy	1,698	English plant name, Old English ifig
10	Isabella	1,690	Latinate form of Isabel, a medieval Occitan reshaping of Elizabeth
54	Isabelle	814	French form of Isabel, from Elizabeth, my God is an oath
57	Iris	759	Greek for rainbow, and the messenger goddess of the rainbow
69	Imogen	648	A printer's error for Innogen in Shakespeare's Cymbeline, probably Irish inghean, girl
134	Indie	367	A modern English name from the word indie or from India; no older etymology
167	Inaya	295	Arabic inaya, care or concern
184	Isabel	271	Medieval Occitan and Spanish reshaping of Elizabeth
246	Isobel	189	Scottish spelling of Isabel, from Elizabeth
253	Ivy-Rose	185	A hyphenated double name; the ONS counts it separately from Ivy and from Rose
272	Irha	169	Modern Urdu; no agreed etymology, and the usual glosses are disputed

The most used boys' names beginning with I in 2025

For boys the letter is much smaller, 6,126 babies across 185 names, and only two sit inside the top 100. The composition is also quite different. Isaac and Isaiah come from the Hebrew Bible; Ibrahim, Ilyas, Isa, Ismail and Idrees are the Arabic forms of prophets named in the Quran, and as a group they are the larger part of the letter.

ONS rank (all boys' names)	Name	Babies in 2025	Meaning and origin
36	Isaac	1,331	Hebrew Yitzchaq, he laughs, from Sarah's laughter in Genesis
70	Ibrahim	731	Arabic form of Abraham, father of many; a prophet in the Quran
142	Idris	368	Two names share the spelling: Welsh iud lord and ris ardent, and a prophet named in the Quran
156	Isaiah	338	Hebrew Yeshayahu, Yahweh is salvation
182	Ilyas	276	Arabic form of Elijah, my God is Yahweh; a prophet in the Quran
238	Isa	207	Arabic form of Jesus as named in the Quran; ultimately Hebrew Yeshua, Yahweh is salvation
243	Ismail	200	Arabic form of Ishmael, God will hear; a prophet in the Quran
283	Ivan	159	Slavic form of John, Hebrew Yochanan, God is gracious
367	Izhaan	114	Modern; usually glossed from Arabic idhan, obedience or permission, but the reading is disputed
408	Idrees	99	A spelling of Idris, the prophet named in the Quran
432	Ibraheem	91	A spelling of Ibrahim, the Arabic form of Abraham
478	Imran	81	Arabic Imran, the father of Maryam in the Quran; the meaning is not agreed

Which I names are rising and which are falling

Climbing

Iris gained 4 places to 57th and is up 44 since 2015. Isabella gained 1 and Isaac 1. Ibrahim rose 7 places to 70th and is up 26 over ten years, the strongest sustained climb in the letter. Isla, remarkably, held its exact rank in 2025 and is in exactly the same position it held in 2015, which almost no name in the top ten manages.

Slipping

Imogen fell 5 places and is down 35 since 2015, the letter's largest ten-year decline. Ivy fell 4 places in 2025 but remains 33 places above where it stood in 2015. Isabelle lost 2 and is down 35 over ten years, a fall that mirrors Imogen's almost exactly. Those three are the only I names with published falls in either list.

What the published change columns cannot tell you

Indie, Inaya, Isabel, Isobel, Ivy-Rose, Irha, Iqra, Idris, Isaiah, Ilyas, Isa, Ismail and Ivan all sit below rank 100 in 2025 and have no published change figure. Isobel at 189 and Isabel at 271 are separate rows from Isabelle at 814, so the underlying name is far more common than any single line implies.

How big a letter I really is

I is sixth for girls and eighteenth for boys, one of the widest gaps in the alphabet. The letter is also unusual in that its two lists barely share a sound: the girls' names are dominated by the long eye of Isla, Ivy and Iris, while the boys' names are dominated by the short i of Ibrahim, Ilyas and Ismail.

The Isabel family is the clearest case of ONS spelling separation anywhere in the data. Isabella at 1,690, Isabelle at 814, Isabel at 271 and Isobel at 189 are four rows for one name, totalling 2,964 babies. Counted as one, it would be the second most popular girls' name in England and Wales. Counted as the ONS counts it, none of the four reaches the top ten.

Further I names in the published 2025 list

The ONS full list does not stop at the tables above, and the counts stay exact all the way down. For girls the next names in order of use are Iqra at 162, Inayah at 161, Isra at 153, Ida at 126, Imaan at 105, Inara at 95, Isla-Rose at 94, Ivy-Mae at 84, Indigo at 82, Iyla at 82, India at 79, Iona at 77. For boys they are Ishaan at 79, Ismaeel at 79, Ivaan at 78, Ivor at 69, Ian at 66, Issac at 61, Issa at 59, Ivar at 57, Ivo at 57, Ishaq at 53, Izaan at 43, Ishaaq at 39. Each figure is the exact number of babies registered with that exact spelling during 2025, taken from the ONS full-list table rather than from the top 100. The letter carries 273 different girls' names and 185 different boys' names in the published data altogether, and any name given to two or fewer babies has been removed from it.

Choosing a I name: what the data changes

If you want an I name that is not already everywhere, the numbers point below rank 100 rather than above it. Imogen at 648 and Iris at 759 are the most established of the less common choices. And if you like the Isabel sound but not its frequency, be aware that the four spellings are heard as the same name however differently they are written, so choosing a rarer spelling does not make the name rarer.

Baby names starting with I: girls and boys