The Most popular names for software developers revealed, with just two women featuring in the uk top 50
New research has revealed the most popular names for software developers, with only two female names making the top 50 in the UK.
According to a global software developer survey, in 2022, female developers amounted to only five percent of all developers, with this year’s International Women’s Day theme to ‘Inspire Inclusion’ encouraging change.
Zengenti, creators of Contensis CMS, undertook new research to see which names came out top globally, in the UK and the US, and to compare the gender disparity.
Using a SSA source of the 200 most popular given names for male and female babies in the 1980s, each name was searched for on LinkedIn, filtering by the title ‘software developer’ and recording how many results there were globally, in the UK and the US.
With 944 software developers across the UK, James and Jim took first place, followed by David in second (816) and Andrew in third (684).
The UK software development industry proved slightly more progressive than its US counterpart, with two female names featured in the top 50 – Sarah and Sara in 43rd place, and Laura in 47th – compared to zero in the states.
Globally, the only female name to feature in the top 50 was Maria (1500), which ranked 42nd with less than a fifth of the results compared to the top male name.
A ranking of the most popular names for software developers in the UK can be found below.
The top 50 software developer names in the UK
| Ranking | Name | Number of software developers in the UK |
| 1 | James/ Jim | 944 |
| 2 | David/ Dave | 816 |
| 3 | Andrew/ Andy | 684 |
| 4 | Daniel/ Dan | 662 |
| 5 | Christopher/ Chris | 622 |
| 6 | Matthew/ Matt | 619 |
| 7 | Michael/ Mike | 596 |
| 8 | Thomas/ Tom | 581 |
| 9 | Steven/ Stephen | 570 |
| 10 | Paul | 503 |
| 11 | Alex | 480 |
| 12 | John | 471 |
| 13 | Mark | 456 |
| 14 | Samuel/ Sam | 397 |
| 15 | Benjamin/ Ben | 388 |
| 16 | Robert/ Rob | 384 |
| 17 | Richard | 363 |
| 18 | Peter | 359 |
| 19 | Adam | 332 |
| 20 | Jack | 296 |
| 21 | Joseph/ Joe | 290 |
| 22 | Jonathan | 284 |
| 23 | William/ Will | 270 |
| 24 | Luke/ Lucas | 250 |
| 25 | Joshua/ Josh | 241 |
| 26 | Nicholas/ Nick | 222 |
| 27 | Ian | 201 |
| 28 | Ryan | 185 |
| 29 | Anthony/ Tony | 175 |
| 30 | Jacob/ Jake | 158 |
| 31 | Timothy/ Tim | 157 |
| 32 | Edward/Ed | 143 |
| 33 | Charles/ Charlie | 137 |
| 34 | Nathan | 133 |
| 35 | Kevin | 126 |
| 36 | Jason | 126 |
| 37 | Aaron | 114 |
| 38 | Patrick | 109 |
| 39 | Sean | 106 |
| 40 | Scott | 102 |
| 41 | Adrian | 93 |
| 42 | Connor | 84 |
| 43 | Sarah/ Sara | 83 |
| 44 | Gregory/ Greg | 74 |
| 45 | Brian | 70 |
| 46 | Kyle | 59 |
| 47 | Laura | 56 |
| 48 | Cameron | 53 |
| 49 | Christian | 47 |
| 50 | Bradley | 47 |
In the US, Michael was unveiled as the most popular name, with David also appearing in second place.
Commenting on the research, Emma Davies, HR and wellbeing manager at Zengenti, said:
“With our names a significant part of our identity, giving us a sense of who we are, it’s no wonder we’re naturally curious about the stereotypes associated with them, including whether they fit our chosen career path.
“While this research was a fun exploration, it does raise important questions about the lack of female representation in the industry. Only one female name featured in the top 50, while in the US, alarmingly, there were none.
“This year’s International Women’s Day theme was to ‘Inspire Inclusion’ and we hope our research can give another reason to do so, as diverse perspectives within software teams are key to helping overcome unintentional biases and gaps in user experiences.”
