John tops the list of the most popular names of lawyers since the 1800s, followed by the appropriately dignified names of Robert, James, David, William, Richard, Thomas and Joseph. And these eight most popular names showed up in each separate "Top-20" list compiled for each decade.

Between 2001 and 2010, the most popular names were Michael at number one, followed by David, John, Jennifer and Matthew.

The lists were compiled by blogger Conrad Saam who runs the marketing for online legal directory, Avvo, which allows people to make decisions when hiring a lawyer by rating and profiling lawyers.

With this access to comprehensive data on lawyer first names, Saam conducted a study of the most popular lawyer names which revealed some interesting trends.

Before the 1980s all the top 20 names were male, with John topping the list again and Ronald scraping in at number 20.

The first time a female name showed up in the top 20 was in the 1980s when Susan made it to number 15, followed by Mary at 16 and Patricia in 20^th place.

Saam also reveals the top 20 female names for lawyers in the past decade with the top five places going to Jennifer, Elizabeth, Sarah, Amy, and Jessica.

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To find out what you should call your child to ensure they grow up to become a lawyer, see more of Saam's results provided in his blog http://avvoblog.com/2010/05/11/lawyer-names/