Jack and Emma favourite new babies' names

Jack and Emma were the top new babies' names last year, with Emma the top for girls for the third year in a row, according to list just published by the Central Statistics Office.

Jack returns as favourite boy's name after two years of being usurped by Seán.

Last year there were 931 Jacks, 38 more than the 893 Seáns who were born. There were 710 Adams, 705 Conors and 699 babies named James.

In the same year there were 703 Emmas and 642 Sarahs. There were 575 Katies, 510 named Amy and 492 Aoifes.

Girls' names have shown more variation over the past seven years than have the boys'. While Emma, Sarah and Aoife have been in the top five since 1998, Katie has only come into vogue since 2003 and Amy only since 2004.

Boys' names have been more steady since 1998, with Jack, Seán, Conor, Adam and James always the top five and only their ranking at the top varying from year to year.

There were five new names in the top 100 for baby girls last year: Alicia, Alisha, Isabella, Julia and Ruby. There were some returns to the list after one or more years' absence: Clara, Emer, Hazel, Heather, Isobel and Zara. The highest new entry was Ruby, which shot in from 207th place in 2000 to 58th place.

At the bottom of the top 100 names for girls were Danielle (100), Hazel (99), Julia and Heather (joint 97). Some of the more unusual were Robyn, at 50th place, Eabha at 54th and Amelia at 91st.

For boys there were three new entrants to the top 100: Calum, Leo and Oscar. The 100th most popular was Hugh, followed at 99th place by Charles and in 98th place, Brandon.

In general there was more variety in girls' names with one in three (37.7 per cent) given names not in the top 100, compared with 28.3 per cent of boys.

Jack was the most popular new name for boys name in the midlands, mideast, midwest and southeast, while Seán was most popular in Dublin, the west and southwest, with Conor the top baby boy name in the Border area.

Emma was the most popular name for girls everywhere except in the Border region and the southwest where most popular names for new girls were Katie and Sarah, respectively.

The list differs somewhat from that of names chosen by parents who announced their babies' arrivals in the columns of The Irish Times last year.

There the most popular boys' names were Matthew and James in joint first position, followed by Harry and Andrew in joint third, Daniel, David and Max. Matthew was 19th most popular nationally and Harry 50th. On the CSO list Andrew was 39th, Daniel was 6th, David 14th and Max 73rd.

The most popular girls' names in The Irish Times births column last year were Emily, Sarah, Lucy, Grace and Anna.

Nationally, Emily was 11th most popular baby girls' name. Sarah was 2nd, Lucy 24th, Grace 14th and Anna 21st most popular.