Female first names

So, what's in a name? Everyone has one, most people have a vague idea what their own means (I've always understood that Rebecca 'meant' enchanting!), but we don't really give them much more thought.

I've put together a list of SNR's direct female ancestors to look at the most frequent names. Obviously, I can go much further back on some lines, which means that potentially names from a particular region are easier to get than others, and therefore, my information is slightly skewed to those areas (I'm thinking of the wonderful records kept of Devon Churches compared to the scarce information from Ireland, or the 'difficult to negotiate' records from Germany). I've ended up with 124 names (counting both first and second names) of which there are 40 different names. I suspect that many people descended from mainly 'English' stock would have a similar list...

The list is as follows:

Mary (25)
Elizabeth (16)
Ann/e (12)
Jane (8)
Sarah (6)
Helen (5)
Catherine (4)
Ellen (4)
Alice (3)
Margaret (3)
Agnes (2)
Clara (2)
Hannah (2)
Isabella (2)
Marjorie (2)
Martha (2)
Matilda (2)
Susanna (2)

Then one occurrence of each of the following: Carey, Caroline, Charlotte, Christina, Dorothy, Eileen, Eliza, Elsie, Frances, Frederica, Gwenyth, Harriet, Isobel, Ivy, Latitia, Lily, Lorna, May, Rachel, Rebecca, Ruth, Tabitha.

These names were 'given' over a period of more than three hundred years, but I've compared them to the records of most popular names from 2013.  Needless to say, they are quite different!  In fact, the only names on the above list that also appear in the Australian, Canadian, Irish, UK or US top ten female names are Isabella (all bar Ireland), Sarah (Canada and Ireland), Charlotte (Aus) and Elizabeth (US).  These are probably names that would be considered 'old'!