'Sean' was the most popular name for male babies in 2003 replacing 'Jack' which had been at number one for three successive years, according to data released by the Central Statistics Office (CSO).
The most popular girls name last year was 'Emma', which skipped over 'Sarah', 'Aoife' and 'Ciara' to claim the top spot having been fourth in 2002.
There were 61,517 births in the State last year, with just over 1,300 more boys than girls born. This is the highest birthrate since 1986 when there were 61,620 babies born. According to the CSO, the higest birthrate on record between 2003 and 1955 was 74,064 in 1980.
There were 897 boys named 'Sean' last year, 3.1 per cent of all boys born. Last year 791 girls were named 'Emma', 2.8 per cent of all baby girls.
The top 100 of boys names saw eight new entries with 'Cameron', 'Colin', 'Daire', 'Emmanuel', 'Karl', 'Reece', and 'Ruairí'.
'Colin was the highest new entry while 'Kian' showed the sharpest rise in popularity rising from 268th place in a list of the most popular names to 65th.
In the list of the most popular 100 girls names were nine new names: 'Alana', 'Amber', 'Aoibhe', 'Cara', 'Faye', 'Sophia' and 'Sorcha'.
'Abby' showed the greatest rise in popularity in 2003, rising from 327th in 1998 place to 60th place last year.
According to the CSO data there was a wider variety of girls names than boys. For boys the top 100 names accounted for nearly 72 per cent of all names while for girls the top 100 included only 61.5 per cent of all names.
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