Jack and Emily were the most popular baby names registered last year, according to the Central Statistics Office (CSO).
Jack retained the title as the most popular baby boy’s name, a position it has held since 2007, except for 2016 when James claimed the top spot.
Jack was followed by James, Noah, Conor and Daniel as the five most popular names for baby boys in 2019.
Emily retains the top spot for girls, followed by Grace, Fiadh, Sophie and Hannah in the top five names for baby girls last year.
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Emily has been the most popular name for baby girls since 2011. Fiadh and Hannah were new entrants to the top five in 2019. Amelia dropped out of the top five last year, having been there since 2015.
The latest publication by the CSO is the second year in a row it has recognised the síneadh fada.
New entrants into the top 100 names for boys included Odhrán, Eli, Ruairí and Joey while Doireann and Méabh entered the top 100 names for girls.
Odhrán was also the boy’s name that increased the most in popularity between 2018 to 2019, moving up from 138th place to 97th.
Alexandra, Heidi and Hollie were the girls’ names growing most in popularity last year. Alexandra moved up 25 places and Heidi and Hollie both moved 20 places in the rankings between 2018 and 2019.
There was a wider variety in the names registered with girls, with 4,184 girls’ names in 2019 compared with 3,725 for boys.
The CSO's Baby Names of Ireland lets you track how many babies were registered under any given name in Ireland between the years 1964 and 2018.
The CSO has also provided a breakdown of the most popular baby names by county for 2019.
Rían was the most popular name for baby boys in Cavan, for example, while Jamie was the most popular boy's name in Donegal. James was the most popular boy's name in Dublin city and Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown, while Jack was the most popular in Fingal and south Dublin last year.
Charlie, Fionn and Thomas were the most popular baby boy’s names in Carlow while Luke was the most popular in Roscommon.
Ella was the most popular name for baby girls in Monaghan last year while Caoimhe was the most popular girl’s name in Sligo. Ava was the most popular girl’s name in Clare while Anna was the most popular in Offaly.
Sophie was the most popular girl’s name in Fingal and Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown last year, Ellie was the most popular in south Dublin and Emily in Dublin city.
The top ten surnames of babies registered in 2019 is also included in the CSO’s publication. Of the 59,795 live births registered in 2019, 20,356 had unrepeated surnames. These unique surnames included some double-barrelled surnames – for example Driscoll-O’Shea.
The top three surnames for births registered were Murphy at 683 (1.1 per cent), Kelly at 567 (0.9 per cent) and Ryan at 450 (0.8 per cent).
The CSO has published babies' forenames since 1998 and receives this data from the General Registration Office (GRO).
Carol Anne Hennessy, CSO statistician, said some of the less popular names for boys included Teidí, Saul, Dexter and Ruán and for girls' included Féile, Jorja, Kyrah and Constance.
“Back in 1969, John, Patrick, Michael, James and Thomas were the names most favoured by parents of new-born baby boys. There were 209 male new-borns named John in 2019, just over 7 per cent of the number of boys given the name John in 1969,” she said.
“Interestingly, not one of the top five names for girls appeared in the top 100 names a half century earlier. Mary, Catherine, Margaret, Ann and Elizabeth were the most popular names for baby daughters in 1969, with 2,182 baby girls named Mary in that year.
“In 2019, there were 452 baby girls named Emily, 20.7 per cent of the number of girls given the name Mary in 1969.”
If you are reading this on The Irish Times app, check the full baby name list here.
