Donegal parents are bucking the trends when it comes to naming their newborns, as two new names reached the top spot for 2020.
The most popular baby boy’s name in Donegal was Charlie last year.
Hannah and Isla both claimed the top spot for newborn girls in Donegal.
Donegal differs from all other counties, who opted for other popular girls’ and boys’ names.
The Central Statistics Office has found that Jack is officially Ireland’s most popular baby boys’ name in 2020 – a position it has held since 2007 except for 2016, when James was the most popular choice. Jack was followed by James, Noah, Daniel and Conor as the five most popular names for boys in Ireland in 2020.
Nationally, Grace claims the top spot for girls for the first time, followed by Fiadh, Emily, Sophie and Ava. Emily held top position for the girls for nine consecutive years (since 2011) until 2020 when it was third on the list behind Grace and Fiadh.
Irish Baby Names 2020 – Image: CSO
In 2019, the most popular boys’ name in Donegal was Jamie and Ella and Emily were number one for girls.
It was a very different picture 50 years ago. Back in 1970, John, Michael, Patrick, David and James were the names most favoured by parents of new-born baby boys. Interestingly, not one of the top five names for girls in 2020 appeared in the top 100 names a half century earlier. Mary, Catherine, Margaret, Ann and Sharon were the most popular names for baby daughters in 1970
Girls are now given a wider variety of names than boys with 4,624 girls’ names registered in 2020 compared to 3,715 boys’ names.
Irish Baby Names 2020 – Image: CSO
Irish Baby Names 2020 – Image: CSO
Sonny was the only new entrant into the top 100 for boys in 2020. There were seven new entrants to the top 100 for girls: Penny, Luna, Cora, Fíadh (with a síneadh fada), Croía, Elsie and Paige. Croía has grown most in popularity, rising from 162nd place in 2019 to 95th in 2020, a jump of 67 places. Cora jumped in popularity from 127th place in 2019 to 90th place in 2020, a rise in 37 places.
Click here to see the popularity of your name over the years: https://www.cso.ie/en/interactivezone/visualisationtools/babynamesofireland/
