ONS Baby Names API Server

An MCP (Model Context Protocol) server that exposes England & Wales baby names data from the ONS birth registration dataset, deployable to Vercel.

Once deployed, you can connect Claude (or any MCP-compatible client) to ask questions like:

• "What were the top baby names in 2024?"
• "How has the popularity of Oliver changed over time?"
• "What names are similar to Olivia for girls?"
• "Which area had the most babies called Alfie in 2024?"

Tools

Tool	Description
get_meta	Available years and geography years in the dataset
get_names	Full list of registered names (all / boys / girls) with slugs
search_names	Search names by substring
get_year_data	All names and counts for a given year
get_top_names	Ranked top N names for a given year
get_name_data	Full time-series (count + rank per year) for a single name
get_geographic_data	Regional breakdown by local authority area
get_similar_names	Names with similar popularity trajectories
health	Diagnostic check

Deploy to Vercel

1. Fork or clone this repo
2. Import it in Vercel
3. Deploy — no build configuration needed

The MCP endpoint will be available at:

https://<your-vercel-url>/mcp

Optional environment variable

Variable	Default	Description
BABY_NAMES_BASE_URL	https://baby-names-api.netlify.app	Override the upstream API base URL

Connect to Claude

In Claude's settings, add a new MCP server with the URL:

https://<your-vercel-url>/mcp

Local development

python -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt
python app.py

The server will start on http://localhost:8000/mcp.

Data source

Data is served from ons-baby-names-api.netlify.app, generated from ONS birth registration statistics for England & Wales. Source code: henryjameslau/baby-names-api.