Emer McLysaght: I’ve no interest in having a baby but am obsessed by the names parents choose

There were only eight Emers born in Ireland last year. Eight Emers, 18 Eimears and not enough Eimers or Eimhears to even register. It’s a lower number than I expected, given that I’ve always viewed my name as a very steady, reliable, straight down the line Irish choice for a baby girl. My mother once told me that it was between Emer, Maeve and Ciara, truly the holy trinity of Lovely Irish Girls.

When I was younger I railed against what I perceived to be a “boring” name, always opting for “Elizabeth”, “Jessica” or “Stephanie” when playing pretend boarding school and for a long time wished I was called “Veda” after watching My Girl every day for a whole summer. I even tried switching to the slightly more glamorous “Eimear” spelling and opened a Post Office account using my new vowels which caused unforeseen hassle down the line when I reverted back to Emer and tried to withdraw five pounds of my Confirmation money.

I felt doubly aggrieved because I didn’t even have an interesting middle name to fall back on. I don’t have a middle name at all. I guess my parents though that a surname with one vowel and eight consonants was enough of a cross to bear without overcomplicating matters. Examining the list of the top girls’ names in 2022 I will gracefully acknowledge that “Emer” has made way for some crackers. Fiadh, Éabha, Saoirse, Róisín and Sadhbh are all represented in the top 50, while Éala was the fastest-rising name. I could have only ever dreamed of having a beguiling fada.

In 1980 one in 10 boys born in Ireland were named John Paul after the Pope’s visit in 1979, and there is still a strong tradition in parts of the country in giving children a family name

I love Central Statistics Office (CSO) baby name data release day, because despite having no interest in ever having a baby I am slightly obsessed with the thought process that goes into choosing a really quite important aspect of a person’s identity. After all, you’re not really naming a baby, you’re naming an adult. They’ll be moving around the world using the moniker as a grown-up for far longer than they’ll be a cute gurgler in a pram. When friends have been pregnant I’ve beseeched them to reveal their longlist so I can roll the names around in my mouth, almost sick with relief that I don’t have to make the decision myself.

Emer McLysaght: The ‘cry laughing’ emoji has been my nemesis for as long as I can remember

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The eight people you meet in the posh emergency department, including the minor sports-adjacent celebrity

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Emer McLysaght: Dryrobes and Francis Brennan pyjamas – here’s Cillian Murphy’s actual bedtime routine

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An evening at Dublin’s new Silent Book Club: ‘It’s free, it’s chill’

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I’ve suggested my various favourites over the years – Alice and Sarah after my mother and grandmother, Kit for a while because it was so cute for a boy and Ramona because I was obsessed with the Beverly Cleary books as a child and also dreamed of being called Ramona or indeed Beverly. Anything but Emer.

The key findings pulled from the baby name data by the CSO told us that Jack was the most popular boy’s name for the sixth year in a row, which is confounding to me as I don’t think I know one child named Jack. Another key finding identified Muhammad as the most popular boy’s name in Galway City (Jack is the top name in Galway county).

The “patriots” of Irish social media were quick to jump on this fact to bolster whatever anti-immigrant agenda they were peddling that day, comically blind to the fact that they know six Seans and four Johns. “Muhammad” is hugely dominant in Muslim families, as they name their baby boys after the prophet of Islam, as well as after their own fathers. It tracks then that the name would stand out in a relatively small pool of births, especially in a year when almost nine thousand distinct newborn names were registered in Ireland. Jack made it to the top spot with only 641 babies given the name across the country.

The bar is low for making it on to the list. In 1980 one in 10 boys born in Ireland were named John Paul after the Pope’s visit in 1979, and there is still a strong tradition in parts of the country in giving children a family name. Religion and custom have dictated naming babies across cultures for thousands of years. Let’s not allow the tiny Muhammads in Galway become a “gotcha” for the bigots.

I’ll be interested to see how “Emer” performs in the coming years, given that she’s been in constant decline since her heady heights of the early 1980s. At least she hasn’t taken as steep a nosedive as “Karen”, which hasn’t registered at all in the past three years. I’m interested to note that while there were only eight “Emers”, there were 11 baby girls called “Bowie” in 2022 (and four baby boys). Times they are a ch-ch-ch-changin’.