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These were the most popular Irish baby names in 2016

The top baby names for boys and girls last year were James and Emily respectively. For boys, the ...
Newstalk
Newstalk

14.04 31 May 2017


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These were the most popular Ir...

These were the most popular Irish baby names in 2016

Newstalk
Newstalk

14.04 31 May 2017


Share this article


The top baby names for boys and girls last year were James and Emily respectively.

For boys, the list followed with Jack, Daniel, Connor and Sean. For girls, Grace, Ava, Lucy polled second, third and fourth, with Amelia and Sophie coming in fifth.

Muhammad entered the top 100 for the first time for boys, and was also marked as the highest climber - up 36 places.

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New entries for girls names included Aria, Matilda, Harper, Willow, Heidi and Zoey. Willow and Harper were the highest climbers.

Less common entries for boys included Anton, Brodie, Cruz, Felim, Haris and Rian. For girls, more unusual names were Blake, Indigo, Lucia, Romy, Reidin and Peyton.

Since 1966, the range of names recorded in Ireland has expanded significantly with 3,456 boys names in 2016 compared to 800 in 1966. For girl, 4,526 unique names were logged, in comparison to 1,323.

Other statistics

The Central Statistics Office (CSO) released the Vital Statistics, Fourth Quarter and Yearly Summary 2016 reports today.

There were 63,897 births registered in 2016, some 2,012 (or 3.1%) fewer than 2015. 

The average age of first time mothers in 2016 was 30.9 years, up 0.2 years from 2015. 

Over a third of (36.5%) babies were born outside of marriage/civil partnerships and of these 60.8% were to
cohabitating parents.

A total of 1,098 teenagers had babies in 2016 and of these, 20 were aged under 16 years. There were 4,393 births to mothers aged 40 and over in 2016 and of these 295 were aged 45 and over.

Boys' names

  1. James 
  2. Jack
  3. Daniel
  4. Conor
  5. Sean

Girls' names

  1. Emily
  2. Grace
  3. Ava
  4. Lucy
  5. Amelia/Sophie

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