Seán O'Connor, statistician with the CSO and Irish Times columnist Jen Hogan join Today with Claire Byrne to chat about the changing fashions in Irish baby names. Listen back above.
Footballers, musicians and even Jedi knights have inspired thousands of Irish parents to call their bundles of joy after celebrities or characters in movies, books, or TV shows.
In recent years, we’ve seen Ronaldos, Shakiras, and Harrisons cropping up; while names like Geraldine and Raymond have all but vanished from the lists of most popular names.
The latest baby names figures for 2022 have just been released by the Central Statistics Office and CSO statistician Seán O’Connor analysed the latest trends with Claire Byrne and Irish Times columnist and mum of seven, Jen Hogan.
Jen says she always knew she wanted to call her first child Chloe after a character in Home and Away, but her husband had his doubts when the name featured in an Eastenders storyline:
"I was adamant all along we were gonna call her Chloe and then a character in Eastenders - Sonia - had a baby that she wasn’t expecting to have and my husband said 'We’re not calling a child after an Eastenders character!’ And then he witnessed childbirth and that was the end of it – I could have called her Sheera if I’d wanted to."
Jen is right on trend with two of her children's names appearing in the current top five for boys – Noah and Jamie. As a massive Liverpool fan, Jen says she was inspired by Jamies Carragher and Redknapp.
Another son is called Adam after a chance conversation in the maternity hospital, and yet another is called Zach because she loves the name. Luke is named after the Star Wars character Luke Skywalker and yet another son’s name is inspired by a movie franchise:
"I have a child named after Spiderman. I actually do. He’s highly annoyed he’s not actually called Spiderman, but he’s called Tobey, like Tobey Maguire – it’s even spelt that way."
CSO number cruncher Seán O’Connor is also a big football fan and he says he’s on the lookout every year for footballers appearing in the new crop of baby names. The names of famous footballers may not make it all the way into the top five, he says, but they are there:
"Some of the names I started to look for were, say, Ronaldo. So we see in 2010 there are around three boys with that name. It started to fall off then with a re-occurrence in 2016 and 2017 where three boys are called Ronaldo again and four in the year after."
Argentine forward Lionel Messi has also prompted some Irish parents to borrow his name for their baby boys, and Seán says the trend in picking footballers’ names can be traced back to the 1990s and Manchester United’s Eric Cantona:
"I suppose Eric reached its height of popularity in the mid-90s, when 114 boys were called that name."
Celebrity kids are also a good source of inspiration for Irish parents and Seán says that the Beckham’s name choices were making waves in the early 2000s, with the appearance of Brooklyns, Cruzes and Harpers.
Musicians have had their impact too over the years, going back to a number of Eltons in the early 1970s and others in more recent years:
"In 1980 and 1986 we see a few appearances of Madonna; three or more. We’d a few Kylies in the late 1980s, a few Britneys in the late 1990s - It would have reached its max in 2000 where 20 girls were called that name. And then we’d a sprinkling of Shakiras in the noughties."
Jen says that parents have to think carefully about which high-profile names they choose as names can date, depending on events unfolding in celebrity culture over time. Star Wars has held its own in terms of influence, with Han Solo making his mark on the stats in recent years:
"The name Harrison reached a peak in say, 2016 with 57 names and last year there were around 43 boys named Harrison."
Princess Leia also got a look in, as did Aria from Game of Thrones who has inspired 29 girl's names in 2021 and 17 last year.
The CSO has been publishing yearly lists since 1998, but they have data on baby names going back to 1964. Seán says that names that were once Irish staples are fading out; such as Geraldine and Raymond. Both names featured heavily in the 1960s and early 70s, but have now disappeared from the lists of the most popular baby names.
Celebrity-inspired names like Doris, Dudley and Loretta featured in the hundreds back in the ‘60s and ‘70s, but have now declined in popularity.
There’s loads of detail in the full report on the CSO website, including the most popular boys and girls names by county. Here’s a summary of their main findings of Irish Babies’ Names 2022:
IRISH BABIES' NAMES 2022
Top Five Baby Names:
Boys:
- Jack
- Noah
- James
- Rían
- Charlie
Girls:
- Emily
- Grace
- Fiadh
- Sophie
- Lily
Top Risers 2022:
Tomás, up 42 places to 77th place.
Éala, up 86 places to 91st place.
New Entries to Top 100:
Boys: Blake and Cody.
Girls: Hailey, Phoebe, Ayda and Éala.
Name Range:
Boys: 4,016
Girls: 4,966
Top Names of 1972:
John
Mary
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