Could you be destined to be a software developer?

Our names are an incredibly important part of our identity - often carrying deep personal, cultural, familial, and historical connections and giving us a sense of who we are.

Research has also suggested your name can shape how others think of your personality - but less is known about whether it can dictate other important aspects of life, such as your career path.

With National Careers Week (4 - 9 March) coinciding with International Women’s Day (8 March) this year, we thought there couldn’t be a better opportunity to find out the most popular names in our industry and test if there is any weight to theories your name can set the course for your career.

Software development continues to be a field largely dominated by men and, as such, it is important to keep the industry accountable with new research that illustrates the scale of gender inequality.

According to a global software developer survey, in 2022, female developers amounted to only five percent of all developers, with the tech industry as a whole facing a similar, overwhelming gender imbalance.

Our own research here at Zengenti supports these findings, with only one female name featuring in the top 50 names for software developers worldwide, two in the UK and, alarmingly, zero in the US.

After sourcing the most popular given names for male and female babies in the 1980s, our teams searched for each name on LinkedIn, filtering by the title ‘software developer’ and recording how many results there were globally, in the UK and the US.

Read on to see if your name made the cut - and if you could be destined to be a software developer.

What are the most popular female names for software developers worldwide? At number 1 was Maria, at 2 was Sarah and Sara and at 3 was Anna. Further on in the list is Michelle at 4, Jennifer at 5, Laura at 6, Julie and Julia at 7, at 8 was Jessica, at 9 was Victoria, 10 was Diana and 11 was Cassandra, Sandra and Sandy.

What are the most popular male names for software developers worldwide? At number 1 was Daniel and Dan, at 2 was David and Dave and at 3 was Michael and Mike. Further on in the list is Alex at 4, John at 5, Christopher and Chris at 6, Jamie and Jim at 7, at 8 was Andrew and Andy, at 9 was Thomas and Tom, 10 was Robert and Rob and 11 was Steven and Stephen.

Daniel is the top name for software developers worldwide, with a staggering 8300 developers, while David (7900) and Michael (7500) follow in second and third, respectively.

Missing from the list were several infamous software developers, including Linus Torvalds, the creator of the Linux kernel, which forms the basis of the Linux operating system.

Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson, co-creators of the UNIX operating system and the C programming language - which have had a profound influence on modern computing - also did not feature, proving anyone can make a profound impact on the industry.

Most notably, the only female name to feature in the top 50 is Maria, coming in at number 42. Sara and Sarah followed in number 51, while Anna was next in position 61.

Ada Lovelace is often regarded as the world's first computer programmer, writing the first algorithm intended to be processed by a machine, but it was Maria who took the top spot in female software developers.

As the most popular female name, there were just 1500 female developers named Maria, compared to 8300 Daniel’s - less than a fifth in comparison.

What are the most popular female names for software developers in the UK? Number 1 is Sarah, number 2 is Laura and number 3 is Emma. At number 4 is Elizabeth, at 5 is Rebecca, at 6 is Maria, at 7 is Jessica, at 8 is Hannah, at 9 is Anna, at 10 is Jennifer and 11 is Victoria.

What are the most popular female names for software developers in the UK? Number 1 is James or Jim, number 2 is Dave or David and number 3 is Andrew or Andy. At number 4 is Daniel or Dan, at 5 is Christopher or Chris at 6 is Matthew or Matt, at 7 is Michael or Mike, at 8 is Thomas or Tom, at 9 is Steven or Stephen, at 10 is Paul, and 11 is Alex.

The results in the UK painted a different picture, with James and Jim’s taking the top spot owing to 944 software developers, up from 7th place in the global findings.

Next came David and Andrew, with 816 and 684 developers, respectively.

Two female names featured in the top 50 - Sarah and Sara in 43rd place, and Laura in 47th - proving slightly more progressive than the US.

What are the most popular female names for software developers in the USA? Number 1 is Jennifer, number 2 is Sarah and Sara and number 3 is Elizabeth. Runners up include Jessica at 4, Emily at 5, Julie or Julia at 6, Mary 7, Katherine or Kathryn at 8, Michelle at 9, Anna at 10 and Kelly at 11.

What are the most popular male names for software developers in the USA? Number 1 is Michael or Mike, number 2 is David or Dave and number 3 is John. Runners up include Christopher or Chris at 4, Daniel or Dan at 5, James or Jim at 6, Matthew or Matt at 7, Andrew or Andy at 8, Steven or Stephen at 9, Alex at 10 and Robert or Rob at 11.

Meanwhile, in the US, Michael was unveiled as the most popular name, with 3400 software developers. In line with its counterparts in the UK, David took the second spot (2600), while John came third (2200).

Zero female names featured in the top 50. Jennifer was the first female name in the rankings, landing in 53rd place - with just 326 software developers nationwide.

Commenting on the research, Emma Davies, Events and wellbeing manager, at Zengenti, said:

“At Zengenti, we’ve often joked about what the most popular name for a software developer must be, given the abundance of Mark’s and Tim’s in our team. It’s good to finally settle the debate and determine, once and for all, what the top names are globally, as well as locally in the UK and the US.

“While this research was a fun exploration as part of National Careers Week, 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, there were none.

“This year’s International Women’s Day theme is ‘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.”

Using a commonly-used list from the SSA, the Zengenti team recorded the 200 most popular given names for male and female babies born during the 1980s.

Using LinkedIn, the team searched for each name, filtered by the title 'software developer' and recorded how many results there were globally, in the UK and the US, to create the rankings.

While unisex names were included in the combined rankings, they were omitted from the gendered lists for accuracy. Five names were also excluded from both the female and male lists due to LinkedIn pulling through inaccurate abbreviations or overlap.

All data correct as of February 2024.

It's important to continue the conversation after International Women's Day has passed.

Check out Technology Dispatch's coverage of our campaign, "The Most popular names for software developers revealed, with just two women featuring in the uk top 50".