IRELAND’S MOST POPULAR baby names for 2020 have been revealed by the Central Statistics Office (CSO), and a new name has taken top spot for newly arrived girls.

Jack remains the most popular name for boys, but Grace has overtaken Emily as the most popular name for girls, reaching top spot for the first time.

The top five names for boys were Jack, James, Noah, Daniel and Conor, with Finn, Liam, Fionn, Harry and Charlie rounding out the top 10.

The top five for girls were Grace, Fiadh, Emily, Sophie and Ava, with Amelia, Ella, Hannah, Lucy and Mia making up the rest of the top 10.

Jack has held the top spot for boys since 2007, with the exception of 2016 when James was the most popular name.

Jack, Conor and James have been in the top five since 1998. Noah first appeared in the top five in 2018 has remained there since.

Emily held top position for girls for nine consecutive years from 2011, until it was pushed down to third behind Grace and Fíadh last year. Ava reclaimed its position in the top five names for the first time since 2016, when it was the third most-popular name.

CSO CSO

Not one of the top five names for girls in 2020 appeared in the top 100 names fifty years ago.

Sonny was the only new entrant into the top 100 for boys in 2020. However, there were seven new entrants to the top 100 for girls: Penny, Luna, Cora, Fíadh, Croía, Elsie and Paige.

The boys’ names with most growth in popularity between 2019 and 2020 were Rian and Eoghan.

Croía and Cora both jumped in popularity for girls between 2019 and 2020.

Here are the top 100 for last year:

CSO CSO

CSO CSO

CSO CSO

CSO figures show that as in previous years, new girls had a wider variety of names than new boys. There were 4,624 girls’ names registered in 2020, compared to 3,715 boys’ names.

The most popular names by county can be searched on the CSO’s website, while a tool also shows trends of the most popular baby names each year since the 1960s, allowing people to search by name and see how they have changed in popularity over the years.

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