Jack jumps to top of Co Galway’s baby names pile!

Jack, Anna and Fiadh were top of the class for babies’ names registered in County Galway in 2018, according to a new report from the Central Statistics Office.

Jack overtook James as the most popular boys’ name from the previous year, while Anna and Fiadh jointly topped the list for girls, replacing Chloe and Emily as the most popular names with parents in 2017.

And in the city, the most popular boys’ name was Michael (replacing Adam from a year earlier), while Emily retained its top place from the previous year. In Connacht as a whole, the most popular names were Jack and Emily for the second year running.

Nationally, Jack and Emily were the top choice of names with parents for the second year running – there were 686 Jacks (up from 685 in 2017) and 460 Emilys (up from 459). It is the eighth consecutive year that Emily has been the most popular name for girls.

The Top 10 boys’ names were Jack, James (589), Noah (494), Conor (489), Daniel (433), Harry (429), Luke (368), Michael (354), Adam (349) and Charlie (349), while for girls, the most popular were Emily, Grace (423), Emma (366), Sophie (344), Amelia (339), Ella (311), Ellie (309), Mia (309), Ava (308) and Fiadh (306).

Nationally, Frankie, Freddie and Theodore were new entrants to the Top 100 for boys and Ada, Bella, Bonnie and Ivy were new additions for girls.

Fifty years earlier, in 1968, the Top 5 boys’ names in Ireland were John (2,863 registered), Patrick (1,850), Michael (1,825), James (1,275) and David (1,149), with Mary (2,364), Catherine (1,082), Margaret (1,029), Ann (749) and Anne (656) the most popular for girls.