It could be curtains for Craig. One of the most popular boys’ names of the postwar era is facing oblivion if current trends continue, as the speed with which parents tire of old names and rally around new ones appears to be accelerating.

Lee, Ross and Shaun are on their way out too, according to analysis of changes in baby names between 1996 and 2017, the latest year for which official data is available for England and Wales. The writing is also on the wall for Jodie and Gemma, with only 20 of each named in 2017 compared with well over 1,000 each in 1996.

The changes come as parents flock to alternative spellings and to names such as Khaleesi, an honorific title used in the TV fantasy drama Game of Thrones, in what academics have identified as a pursuit of “virtue in rarity”. For boys, the fastest-rising name is Jaxon, which is as popular now as Mark was in 1996, while for girls it is Aria, as popular as Hayley was 23 years ago.

Peak Craig came in the early 1980s, when the singer and DJ Craig David was born. After a period as a comedy punchline thanks to the Bo’ Selecta TV show, his career has rebounded recently with a critically acclaimed album and an appearance on ITV’s Love Island raising the prospect of a renaissance for the name. Yet the number of parents naming their baby boys Craig slumped by 97% between 1996 and 2017, resulting in just 25 new Craigs in all of England and Wales, the biggest fall of any previously popular boy’s name.

Scotland, which might be expected to be a safe haven for a name thought to be derived from the Scottish gaelic for stone, creag, produced only 23 last year. Even prominent Craigs appeared unsure about whether their fading name is worth defending.

“I blame my mother,” said Craig Whittaker, MP for Calder Valley, when asked about his name. “I am conscious that very few people seem to be called Craig. Actually, I am proud of my name, despite what I just said about my mother. There you go, a U-turn on my name in 30 seconds flat.”

“When I was at school, you couldn’t move for us Craigs,” said Craig Elder, a digital campaign strategist. “There were three in my class alone. But it hardly throws up glamorous or contemporary celebs when you think about it – the first thing that springs to mind is Craig MacLachan from Neighbours, Craig David, and one half of the Proclaimers [Craig Reid]. That aside, it’s never really held me back in life, aside from Americans not being able to pronounce it properly and calling you Greg instead.”

Things look even worse for Kirsty, whose 2017 cohort of 11 would only just fill a football team, although the broadcaster Kirsty Wark, remained confident for her name’s future. “There’s loads of us – Kirstie Allsopp, Kirsty Young,” she said. “Luckily, there are a few of us around to keep the flag flying.”

In any event, it turns out that Wark is a Kirsteen, but isn’t known by it because “they kept calling me Kirsty at university”.

Academics at Oxford University who have analysed 170 years of UK names, including the fashion for Old Testament names like Enoch and Cephas in the 19th century and the rise in Indian names after independence in 1947, have found that name choices form “a self-correcting feedback loop, whereby rarer names become common because there are virtues perceived in their rarity, yet with these perceived virtues lost upon increasing commonality”.

The search for distinctiveness has thrown up unique spellings, with Abbiegayle, Abagael, Abygayle, Abaigael and Abbygael all deployed only once each between 1998 and 2013.

“Towards the present day, we can speculate that the comparatively greater range of media, freedom of movement, and ability to maintain globally distributed social networks increases the number of possible names, but also ensures they may more quickly be perceived as commonplace,” Dr Stephen Bush wrote in his analysis of name choices from 1838 to 2016.

“Consequently, contemporary naming vogues are relatively short-lived, with many name choices appearing a balance struck between recognisability and rarity.”

Among the fastest-rising names reflecting the growth of the UK’s Muslim population are Ameerah, Aasiyah and Imaan for girl and Musa, Dawud and Zayn for boys.

Lee has endured a 95% fall in popularity as a boy’s name and appears to have died out entirely as a girl’s name, with no uses recorded in 2017. It was used over a thousand times for boys in 1996, but that has dwindled to just 51 by 2017, perhaps in part due to its prestige being undermined by Harry Enfield giving the name to a cowboy builder in his Harry Enfield and Chums sketch show.

“They are making a mistake,” said Lee Mallett, a writer born in 1957, who said his name had served him well, not least providing a platform for his Lee Marvin impersonation aged 13.

“It was rare where I was growing up in rural Lincolnshire and somewhat glamorously American. It was always memorable, and sounded different when other people spoke it to other more popular names. Thanks, Mum and Dad.”

Extinction, albeit perhaps temporary, may already have arrived for Lindsay, Lynsey or Lyndsey and Christie or Kristy – the Office for National Statistics has no record of anyone taking those names in 2017. The future is looking grave, too, for Jordan and Brittany/Britney, names borrowed perhaps from two pop culture icons: the glamour model Katie Price, who used the name Jordan, and US singer Britney Spears.

But there is hope yet for Craig, said Dr Bush, who observed that its current problems may stem from it seeming like “a dad name”. “Someone is going to reappraise it in the future,” he said. “It’s rare that names disappear completely.”

One that has gone is the name given to the third daughter of the Old Testament prophet, Job. His other two daughters, Kezia and Jemima, remain in use, but Keren-happuch hasn’t been used since at least 1996. Consider that a challenge, Guardian readers.

Data by Pamela Duncan and Sacha Shevchenko