These are the most popular baby names in Ireland

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The Central Statistics Office (CSO) have today revealed the most popular baby names in Ireland in 2016. Jack, the most popular boy’s name in Ireland since 2007, has finally been moved into second place after nine years at the top while Emily still retains the number one name for girls, a position it has held since 2011. The name Jack was heading for a ten-year tenure at the top of the list but has been replaced by the name James with Daniel, Conor and Sean following closely in third, fourth and fifth. The name James also proved very popular 50 years ago. Back in 1966, John, Michael, Patrick, James and Paul were the names most favoured by parents of newborn baby boys. While there were 3,152 baby boys named John 50 years ago, the five most popular boys’ names in 2016 together only accounted for 2,989 baby boys. Emily, Grace, Ava, Lucy and Amelia jointly with Sophie were ranked in the top five names of choice by parents for their newly arrived baby girls. Mary, Catherine, Margaret, Ann and Anne were the most popular names for baby daughters in 1966. In 2016, there were 490 baby girls named Emily, compared with 2,857 given the name Mary in 1966. Image via cso.ie As is evident from the tables above, girls are given a wider variety of names than boys with 4,526 separate girls names registered, compared to 3,456 for boys. For boys, Muhammad, Louis, Lucas, Josh, Jason and Ollie had the most growth in popularity.  Muhammad jumped 36 places in the rankings since 2015, up from 119 to 83 in 2016 to make it the only new entrant into the top 100 names for boys. Louis was ranked 106 in 2015 and took 78^th position in 2016, an improvement of 28 places in the rankings. Willow, Matilda, Harper, Heidi and Zoey showed the most growth in popularity in girls’ names between 2015 and 2016 and these together with Aria were the only new entrants into the top 100 names for girls in 2016. Willow was ranked 72^nd in 2016 up 49 places from 121 in 2015.  Matilda also improved position, up from 146 in 2015 to a rank of 97 in 2016, a jump of 49 places in the rankings. In 2016, James was the top name for boys in Dublin City while Charlie was the most popular in Cork City and Daniel earned the top spot in Waterford City.  It was Michael that took the honours for new born baby boys in Galway City while Limerick City favoured Conor. Amelia proved most popular for baby girls in Dublin City and Cork City.  Waterford City made Mia best in class while Galway city made Fiadh most popular. Jack was the most popular name for boys and Grace the most popular for girls where both parents were of Irish nationality. Finn and Isaac for boys and Aria and Emily for girls shared the number one spot where both parents were U.K. nationals. Some less popular names for boys included Anton, Brodie, Cruz, Harris and Feilim while less popular girls’ names included Blake, Indigo, Lucia, Reidin, Romy and Peyton. Murphy, Kelly, O’Brien, Ryan and Walsh were the five most popular surnames of newborns registered in 2016”.