The most used girls' names beginning with X in 2025

X is the smallest letter in the whole of the ONS girls' data. Thirteen different X names were recorded for girls in England and Wales in 2025, given to 117 babies between them, which is roughly one girl in every two thousand. Xanthe leads with 35, and from Xyla at 12 downward every remaining name in the letter was given to four babies or fewer.

ONS rank (all girls' names)	Name	Babies in 2025	Meaning and origin
983	Xanthe	35	Greek xanthos, yellow or golden
1454	Xena	21	A modern coinage popularised by television; often linked to Greek xenos, stranger, but that link is retrospective
1809	Xenia	16	Greek xenia, hospitality, from xenos, stranger or guest
2278	Xyla	12	Modern; usually linked to Greek xylon, wood, though the coinage is recent
4867	Xanthia	4	A modern elaboration of Xanthe, from Greek xanthos, golden
4867	Xara	4	A modern respelling of Zara; the pronunciation follows Zara, not Greek
4867	Xaya	4	A recent coinage with no recorded earlier use and no agreed meaning
4867	Xin	4	Chinese; the meaning depends entirely on the character written, most often heart or new
4867	Xiomara	4	Spanish, probably from the Germanic name Guiomar; the reading is disputed
4867	Xolani	4	Zulu and Xhosa, be peaceful or forgive
5927	Xaia	3	A recent coinage with no earlier record and no agreed meaning
5927	Xalia	3	A recent coinage with no earlier record and no agreed meaning

The most used boys' names beginning with X in 2025

The boys' letter is nearly four times larger at 437 babies but almost as narrow, with 14 names. Xander at 212 and Xavier at 174 account for 386 of the 437, which is 88 per cent of the letter in two rows. Everything else is in single figures, and none of it comes near the published top 100.

ONS rank (all boys' names)	Name	Babies in 2025	Meaning and origin
236	Xander	212	Short form of Alexander, defender of men
263	Xavier	174	Basque place name Etxeberria, the new house, through Saint Francis Xavier
2664	Xavi	8	Catalan short form of Xavier, the new house
3684	Xaden	5	A recent coinage on the Aiden pattern, with no earlier record
3684	Xavian	5	A modern elaboration of Xavier
3684	Xion	5	A modern coinage, sometimes a respelling of Zion
4275	Xai	4	A modern coinage; no settled etymology
4275	Xan	4	A short form of Alexander, defender of men
4275	Xavion	4	A modern elaboration of Xavier
4275	Xerxes	4	Greek form of Old Persian Khshayarsha, ruler over heroes
5137	Xakai	3	A recent coinage with no earlier record and no agreed meaning
5137	Xane	3	A modern respelling of Zane, itself of uncertain origin

Which X names are rising and which are falling

Climbing

No X name of either sex has ever reached the ONS top 100 in the current series, so no change-in-rank figures exist for this letter at all. There is no published evidence that any X name is rising or falling in England and Wales, and this page does not manufacture any. The counts below are the entire published record for 2025.

Slipping

The same applies to falls. With a letter this small, a shift of five babies would move a name several hundred rank positions, which is exactly why year-on-year comparison at this end of the list would be meaningless even if the ONS published it. The honest statement about X is that it is very small and that the data says nothing about its direction.

What the published change columns cannot tell you

X is the letter most affected by the ONS confidentiality rule. Names given to two or fewer babies in England and Wales are removed from the published dataset under section 40 of the Freedom of Information Act, and in a letter where the eleventh most common girls' name was given to three babies, that removes a substantial share of the names actually registered. The published list is a floor, not a census of X names.

How big a letter X really is

X ranks twenty-sixth for girls and twenty-fifth for boys by babies named. It is the rarest initial in the country for girls, and only Q has fewer babies once both sexes are added together. It is also one of the most boy-weighted letters in the alphabet: for every girl given an X name there were nearly four boys, a ratio matched only by J and T.

The letter divides into two halves that have nothing in common. Xander and Xavier, which are almost all of the boys' side, are a short form of Alexander and a Basque place name respectively, and both are pronounced with a Z sound at the start. The girls' side is mostly Greek, with Xanthe, Xenia and Xanthia, and those begin with the same Z sound but come from a completely different tradition.

Further X 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 Xanthi at 3. For boys they are Xen at 3, Xylo at 3. 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 13 different girls' names and 14 different boys' names in the published data altogether, and any name given to two or fewer babies has been removed from it.

Choosing a X name: what the data changes

If you are considering an X name, the practical issue is not popularity but pronunciation, because the letter is read as Z in Xanthe and Xavier, as KS in Xerxes and as SH in Xin. Almost every X name will be misread at least once. In exchange, the ONS data shows it is the rarest initial in England and Wales by a clear margin on the girls' side.

Baby names starting with X: girls and boys