Grace and Jack 'most popular' baby names last year
Jack and James have been in the top five boys’ names for 25 years
The most popular Irish baby names for 2023 have been released by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) this afternoon.
The top five girls' names include Grace, Fiadh, Emily, Sophie and Lily while the five most popular boys’ names are Jack, Noah, James, Rian and Oisín.
Jack has been in the top spot for 17 years with an exception made in 2016 when James made the top spot.
Jack and James have been in the top five boys’ names for 25 years and 2023 was the first time Oisín made it into the top five ranking.
Grace is back in pole position when it comes to the most popular girl’s name. According to the CSO stats, Grace, Emily and Fiadh have been swapping bronze, silver and gold since 2019. These names have consistently been in the top three since then with Grace becoming the first or second choice for girls’ names since 2018.
Fiadh was the first to move it off top spot in 2021, and Emily in 2022. Meanwhile, there were just over 54,373 births registered in Ireland last year - a fall of 5.5% when compared with 2022.
561 babies born were called Jack while 339 newborn baby girls were named Grace.
The race for top spot is much closer for girls. There is a difference of 88 between Jack and Noah while 39 separates Grace and Fiadh.
There were almost 5,000 different girls’ names registered in 2023, compared with just under 4,200 different boys’ names.
In 2023, for the first time in a long time, there were more new entrants on the boys’ list than the girls. Names include Caelan, Jude, Paddy, Éanna and Dáithí. For the girls new names are Lucia, Cadhla and Síofra.
When it comes to famous Irish names, Cillian proves to be consistently popular and ranked ninth in 2023 - a position the name has held since 2021.
Jack was the most popular name for baby boys in all provinces in 2023 while Tom was the most popular name for baby boys born in Co Roscommon and Patrick - the most favoured name in Co Longford.
Some of the less frequently used girls’ names registered in 2023 that were not in the top 100 include Bláithín, Lena, Miroslava, and Demi. Less frequently used boys’ names were Idris, Ultán, Maros and Kobie.