For hundreds of years, first names were more like traditions than fashions. Parents would select names from a small pool of options and often recycle the same ones across generations. Between 1150 and 1550, practically every English male monarch was named Henry (eight of them), Edward (six), or Richard (three). Between 1550 and 1800, William, John, and Thomas accounted for half of all English men’s names. Half of England’s women went by Elizabeth, Mary, or Anne.
