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September 9, 2026

The Bridgerton Effect: Regency Baby Names on the Rise

How Bridgerton transformed baby naming: Daphne doubled, Eloise broke into the top 50, and Regency names surged. Here is what 146 years of data shows.

The Bridgerton Effect: Regency Baby Names on the Rise

Pop culture has always shaped what parents write on birth certificates, but television usually does it clumsily. A character appears, a name spikes violently for a single calendar year, and then it plummets once the finale airs.

What Netflix’s Bridgerton has done since arriving in late December 2020 is something entirely different. It didn’t spark a flash-in-the-pan fad; it reignited an entire aesthetic.

By pulling Regency romance into the modern mainstream, the show handed expectant parents permission to embrace antique, ornate, and melodic names that had previously felt confined to yellowed library paper. And because the series returns every couple of years with a fresh sibling taking center stage, the momentum hasn’t faded. It has compounded.

Here is what 146 years of national birth data reveals about the Bridgerton effect — where it struck like lightning, where it barely registered, and what it tells us about how modern taste evolves.

The Sisters: Daphne, Eloise, and Francesca

The clearest place to see the show’s imprint is on the Bridgerton daughters whose stories have led seasons so far.

Daphne: From Obscurity to an All-Time High

Before the show debuted on Christmas Day 2020, Daphne had been a quiet mid-century name that enjoyed a modest peak in the 1960s (reaching #277 in 1964 with 1,029 girls) before slowly drifting downward. In 2019, only 734 American baby girls were named Daphne, ranking #435. In 2020, it stood at 753 babies (#414).

Then Season 1 aired.

In 2021, Daphne surged to 1,103 babies (#288) — a 46% leap in twelve months. Rather than cooling off once the initial buzz subsided, the name kept picking up speed:

That 2025 figure of 1,740 is not just a high-water mark for the 2020s — it is the highest single-year count Daphne has ever recorded in 146 years of American record-keeping. The count has more than doubled (+131%) in five years.

Eloise: A Top-50 Breakthrough

If Daphne’s comeback was dramatic, Eloise is a juggernaut.

Eloise was already warming up in the late 2010s, riding the broader wave of vintage revivals alongside names like Eleanor and Evelyn. In 2020, it was given to 1,970 girls, ranking #137.

When the television audience fell in love with Eloise’s sharp wit and fierce independence, the name caught fire:

In 2025, Eloise officially crossed into America’s top 50 girl names for the first time in recorded history. It was given to more than 4,200 babies last year — more than double its 2020 count. A name that hadn’t seen the top 100 since the 1920s is now one of the defining names of a generation.

Francesca: The Season 3 Awakening

Francesca spent decades hovering around the #400 mark. In 2020, 679 girls received the name (#455).

When Francesca became a focal romance arc in Season 3 (released in 2024), the numbers responded immediately:

Like Daphne, Francesca closed 2025 at its all-time historical peak.

Curious about the full 146-year history of your favorite vintage revival? Track its popularity trajectory in our free lookup tool.

The Wildcard: Hyacinth

The most extreme relative mover is the youngest Bridgerton sister: Hyacinth.

Botanical Victorian names have been booming for a decade (think Hazel, Ivy, Violet, and Iris). But Hyacinth had long been considered too obscure, almost eccentric. In 2020, exactly 5 baby girls in the entire United States were named Hyacinth (ranking #15,088).

By 2025, that number had grown to 33 babies (#4,265). While 33 babies keeps Hyacinth well inside rare-gem territory, that is more than a six-fold increase in five years. For parents who want the floral, romantic feel of Violet without any of the playground ubiquity, Hyacinth has quietly become a live option.

The Established Royalty: Penelope and Charlotte

Two other central women from the series illustrate what happens when pop culture embraces names that are already household favorites.

Penelope had already peaked near the top of the charts in 2019 (6,734 babies, #22). Rather than sparking a wild new surge, Bridgerton simply cemented Penelope as a modern classic. In 2025, it held steady at 6,225 babies (#22).

Meanwhile, Queen Charlotte — whose spinoff miniseries captured millions of viewers — was given to 13,400 girls in 2025, cementing it as the #2 most popular girl name in America. It also marked an all-time record count for Charlotte, proving that royal gravitas remains irresistible.

The Brothers: Why Didn’t the Men Move?

The contrast between the Bridgerton women and the Bridgerton men reveals something crucial about how baby naming works.

Look at the numbers for the leading men of the family:

Name2020 Count (Rank)2025 Count (Rank)5-Year Trend
Anthony7,037 (#41)5,967 (#46)-15%
Colin1,177 (#287)950 (#343)-19%
Gregory609 (#496)493 (#593)-19%
Simon1,409 (#249)1,529 (#230)+8%
Benedict187 (#1,069)305 (#814)+63%

Anthony, Colin, and Gregory did not rise at all — each actually continued a slow multi-year decline. Why? Because to American ears, Anthony, Colin, and Gregory do not sound like romantic Regency lords. They sound like your uncle, your high school soccer coach, or a colleague at work. They were already too common in the mid-to-late 20th century to feel “freshly antique.”

The only brother to post a dramatic climb is Benedict. Benedict rose from 187 boys in 2020 to 305 boys in 2025, climbing more than 250 spots back into the top 1,000 (#814). Like Daphne and Eloise, Benedict felt rare enough and vintage enough that the show gave it a brand-new cultural sheen.

The Lesson of the Regency Wave

The “Bridgerton effect” works because it aligns with what modern parents were already searching for: syllables that sound dignified, literary, and vintage, with zero harsh consonants and plenty of vowels.

Television didn’t force parents to choose Daphne or Eloise against their will. Instead, it served as a national proof of concept. It showed that a name once tucked away in history books could sound vibrant, stylish, and charming on a living, breathing person.

If you love these names, you are in wonderful company. Just know what kind of momentum you are stepping into: Daphne is no longer a forgotten vintage curiosity, and Eloise is officially one of the biggest names in the nation.

Every count on this page is a number of real American babies, taken from the official national birth record that runs back to 1880.

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Source: U.S. Social Security Administration data, 1880–2025.