Lyra was 150th most popular girl’s name in 2019

Ed Sheeran and his wife Cherry have named their new daughter Lyra Antarctica Seaborn Sheeran.

According to the most recent Office for National Statistics (ONS) data, Lyra was the 150th most popular girl’s name in England and Wales last year, appearing 342 times.

No babies were given this name when the ONS annual records began in 1996.

Three babies were named Lyra in 1999, and its previous highest position was in 2018 when it was 142nd, with 362 babies.

The name has links to music and astronomy, as it derives from the Latin word for lyre, a small harp, and describes a constellation in the northern sky containing the star Vega.

It is also the name of the heroine in Sir Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials books, the first of which – Northern Lights – was published in 1995.

There have been no babies given the first name Antarctica, according to the ONS data.

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