These are the UK’s most popular chief executive names

The most common name among FTSE 100 chief executives is David, with Michael and Simon falling into joint second place.

 

Using data scraped from Reuters, City A.M. found that 17 of the UK's 100 biggest companies are headed up by a man with one of these three names.

 

David is way in the lead, though – nine chief executives have this name, including David Potts of Morrisons, David Lewis of Tesco and David Williams of Mondi. 

 

Other chief exec-friendly names include Ian, Martin, Mark and Chris. No woman's name makes more than one appearance in the list of FTSE 100 chief executives. 

Today, the Office for National Statistics released data showing which baby names are most popular among new parents. Oliver and Amelia topped the list in 2014 across England and Wales for the second year in a row.

 

But how do the names chosen compare to those belonging to the most powerful bosses of UK companies?

 

The chief executive whose name was most regularly chosen for babies last year was Olivia Garfield of Severn Trent – 4,724 babies were called Olivia over the 12 month period.

 

After Olivia came George Weston, chief executive of Associated British Foods – his name was chosen 4,320 times (including once by the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge). 

 

William, Henry and Samuel fell into third, fourth and fifth place.