It won't be a surprise to anyone that the average age that women in the UK have their first baby is getting gradually older with every year. Wanting to progress in careers and being unable to afford to buy a house are both common reasons for people who want kids to push the baby-making back, but that doesn't mean there aren't still plenty of people getting started with their families at a younger age.

While the average age of first-time mums across England and Wales currently stands at 28.9, there were still more than 104,000 babies born to women under the age of 25 in 2019 (the year for which the Office of National Statistics has the most recent data). So we thought it would be interesting to see what some of the favoured baby names are among mothers in that age group.

And it's clear there are some generational differences between what older and younger parents prefer. Older parents are clearly more drawn towards classic names that have long been favoured over the years, whereas it looks to be more common for younger parents to be inspired by pop culture with some more modern names in the mix.

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Some of the boys' names that feature highly in the most popular baby name list for mums over the age of 35, but don't seem to be quite so popular among younger parents, include Jack, William, Alexander, James and Joshua. On the flip side, names that appear notably higher up in the under-25 mothers baby name list than they do in the over-35s list include Logan, Hunter, Mason, Elijah and Archie.

The girls' names that feature highly in the list of favoured names for mums over 35, but don't appear to be as popular with mothers under 25, include Emily, Charlotte, Florence, Jessica and Matilda. Conversely, the girls' names that seem to be preferred by younger parents in comparison to the average UK parent include Harper, Scarlett, Elsie, Layla and Aria.

Here are the top 20 baby names for boys among mums under the age of 25 in the UK:

  1. Noah
  2. Leo
  3. Archie
  4. Freddie
  5. Oliver
  6. Oscar
  7. Arthur
  8. Alfie
  9. Theo
  10. George
  11. Charlie
  12. Logan
  13. Hunter
  14. Tommy
  15. Mason
  16. Elijah
  17. Muhammad
  18. Isaac
  19. Harry
  20. Theodore
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Fajrul Islam//Getty Images

And here are the top 20 baby names for girls among mums under the age of 25 in the UK:

  1. Amelia
  2. Olivia
  3. Ava
  4. Isla
  5. Mia
  6. Isabella
  7. Harper
  8. Ivy
  9. Lily
  10. Evie
  11. Ella
  12. Willow
  13. Freya
  14. Elsie
  15. Sophia
  16. Poppy
  17. Scarlett
  18. Grace
  19. Rosie
  20. Sofia

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From: Cosmopolitan UK