When I lived in London in the 90s, I was gobsmacked (astonished in British) by how different the baby names were there. It wasn’t like they used names Americans had never heard of – exotic ones like Pema or invented ones like Puma – but that they used some of the familiar English names far more often than did parents in the U.S.

　　Clementine and Hugo, for instance, were the most fashionable names of that day in the U.K., names I’d rarely heard stateside. Clementine was pronounced with an –een ending, which removed it from the “Oh My Darling” association – not that many Brits carried that association.

　　Some of the names popular in Britain and not in the U.S. are similarly free of connections that may damn them in America: Jemima, say, and Archie. Others are old Celtic or Cornish or Welsh names that never crossed the ocean, such as Tamsin and Callum.

　　And then there are those names on this list that are classics or short forms heard in America, but not as fashionably – I’m thinking of Forence, for example, and Freddie, Lucy (yes, still) and Louis.

　　Based on another entertaining tour through the London Telegraph birth announcements from the past few months, here are some names that are stylish in the U.K. right now.

　　Girls

　　ALICE

　　CECILY

　　CHARIS or CARYS

　　CRESSIDA

　　DARCY or DARCEY

　　DAVINA

　　EDIE

　　ELIZA

　　FLORA

　　FLORENCE

　　FREYA

　　GENEVIEVE

　　GEORGIANA or GEORGINA

　　IMOGEN

　　JEMIMA

　　LUCY

　　MAISIE

　　NATASHA

　　OCTAVIA

　　POPPY

　　PRIMROSE

　　TABITHA

　　TAMSIN

　　VERITY

　　ZARA

　　Boys

　　ALASTAIR

　　ANGUS

　　ARCHIE

　　ARTHUR

　　BARNABY

　　BENEDICT

　　BYRON

　　CALLUM

　　CATHAN

　　COSMO

　　DIGBY

　　DOMINIC

　　EWAN

　　FELIX

　　FERGUS

　　FLETCHER

　　FREDERICK or FREDDIE

　　GEORGE

　　HARRY

　　HARVEY

　　HORATIO

　　HUW

　　IVOR

　　LACHLAN

　　LOUIS

　　OLIVER

　　OSCAR

　　OTTO

　　RANULPH

　　RHYS

　　ROCCO

　　ROLLO

　　RORY

　　RUPERT

　　SEBASTIAN

　　THOMAS

　　TOBIAS or TOBY

　　WALTER