Ireland’s Central Statistics Office has released the most popular baby names in Ireland for 2021 for Irish children with Jack retaining the top spot for boys while Fiadh claims first place for girls in 2021.
From an analysis of the 58,442 live births registered in 2021 by Ireland’s Central Statistics Office (CSO), Jack has achieved the number one spot for the 18th time. Jack has held this position since 2007 with the exception of 2016, when James held the number one spot. Fiadh has taken the number one spot for the first time, climbing from second place in 2020. Grace held the number one spot in 2020. Prior to this, Emily had held the number one spot for the most popular name for baby girls since 2011.
Noah, James, Conor and Rían make up the rest of the Irish baby names for boys’ top 5, with Grace, Emily, Sophie and Éabha completing the girls’ list.
John, Michael, Patrick, David and James 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 1971. Back then the top 5 names were Mary, Catherine, Margaret, Fiona and Sinead.
John and Mary were the most popular names in 1971. Now 50 years later, John has dropped to 28th place in popularity for baby boys. For girls the difference is more profound with Mary slipping out of the top 100 for the first time to 127th place.
For boys there were ten new entrants to the top 100 names. Teddy, Daithí, Páidí, Jaxon, Brody, Ted, Hunter, Tadgh, Tiernan and Arlo.
Ted saw the largest jump in popularity amongst Irish baby names for boys, up 40 places from 139th place in 2020 to 90th in 2021. Similarly, Hunter moved up the ranks from 129th place in 2020 to 91st in 2021.
There were three new entrants to the top 100 Irish baby names for girls in 2021 with Indie, Ayla and Lottie. Croía grew the most in popularity, rising from 95th place in 2020 to 52nd in 2021, a jump of 43 places. Indie jumped in popularity from 106th place in 2020 to 78th place in 2021.
Top 25 babies’ names registered in 2021, in order of popularity, with corresponding rank between 2020 and 2021
CSO figures show girls are given a wider variety of names than boys with 4,741 girls’ names registered compared to 3,863 boys’ names in 2021.
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 16 whilst Sean has fallen to rank 102 in 2021.
If you would like more information on baby names in Ireland for 2021, including a county-by-county breakdown, then visit the CSO website.
