Ireland’s Central Statistics Office has released the most popular baby names in Ireland for 2023 for Irish children with Jack retaining the top spot for boys while Grace regains first place for girls in 2023.
From an analysis of the 57,373 live births registered in 2023 by Ireland’s Central Statistics Office (CSO), Jack has achieved the number one spot for the 20th time. Jack has held this position since 2007 with the exception of 2016, when James held the number one spot. Grace regains the number one spot, climbing from second place in 2022. Fiadh holds 2nd place for 2023 but was the most popular girls’ name in 2021. Prior to 2023, Grace was most popular in 2020. Prior to this, Emily had held the most popular girls’ name for 2022 and from 2011 to 2019.
Noah, James, Rían and Oisín make up the rest of the Irish baby names for boys’ top 5, with Fiadh, Emily, Sophie and Lily completing the girls’ list.
John, Michael, Patrick, David and Paul were the top 5 boys names fifty years ago, but not a single one of today’s 10 most popular girls’ names were even in the top 100 in 1973. Back then the top 5 names were Mary, Catherine, Margaret, Sinead and Caroline.
John and Mary were the most popular names in 1973. Now 50 years later, John has dropped to 31st place in popularity for baby boys. In 2023, Mary has dropped out of the top 100 to take the 130th place after slipping out before in 2021.
Caelan, Jude, Paddy, Éanna and Dáithí were the five new entrants for boys to the top 100 names.
Caelan saw the largest jump in popularity amongst Irish baby names for boys, up from 108th place in 2022 to 50th in 2023.
There were three new entrants to the top 100 Irish baby names for girls in 2023 with ucia, Cadhla and Síofra. Síofra grew the most in popularity, with a rise from 157th place in 2022 to 100th in 2023, a jump of 57 places in rank.
Top 25 babies’ names registered in 2023, in order of popularity, with corresponding rank between 2022 and 2023
CSO figures show girls are given a wider variety of names than boys with 4,991 girls’ names registered compared to 4,181 boys’ names in 2023.
The Effect of the Síneadh Fada on the Baby Names Stats
Since the introduction of the síneadh fada and other diacritics in 2018, names like Sean (without the síneadh fada) has always been in the top 100 most popular names for boys. Seán with the síneadh fada is now included in the data and both spellings are treated as 2 separate names since 2018, thus Seán has a rank of 14 whilst Sean has fallen to rank 124 in 2023.
If you would like more information on baby names in Ireland for 2023, including a county-by-county breakdown, then visit the CSO website.
