What’s in a (Triplet) name?

The popularity of baby names has been much mentioned in the press this week as The Office for National Statistics released a list of the most popular first names given to babies whose births were registered in England and Wales in 2011. In Scotland the data is independently gathered and released by The National Records of Scotland.




This is a topic that's always close to our hearts whenever the latest annual list is produced as along with the other logistical difficulties we faced when expecting triplets we had the not inconsiderable task of choosing 3 girls' names (6 with the accompanying second names) that would stand the test of time. In the end we opted for Elizabeth, Erin and Norah, and 7 years on we are very happy with our choices.

Looking at the overall statistics for 2011 the clear winners again this year were Jack for a boy and Sophie for a girl.

The most popular boys’ list sees little change at the top during the last 12 months with Jack, Lewis and James keeping their first 3 places from 2010. Ethan (up 6 places to 5th), Alexander (up 4 places to 8th), Harry (up 7 places to 9th) and Charlie (up 8 places to 16th), are rising in popularity while there have been reductions in popularity for Ross (down 27 places to 76th), Sean (down 14 places to 82nd), and Declan (down 17 places to 98th).

For the seventh year, Sophie is the most popular girls’ name for new babies. Lily climbs from ninth place to second whilst Ava stays in third. There is one new entrant to the top ten – Jessica (up 3 places to 8th) and three new entrants in the top twenty – Millie and Sophia (up 9 and 25 places respectively to joint 18th) and Kayla (up 7 places to 20th). Fallers on the girls’ side include Niamh (down 12 places to 41st), Aimee (down 15 places to 48th) and Skye (down 16 places to 53rd).

So what about our little family? How did Elizabeth, Erin and Norah and their parents Michael and Theresa fare in the popularity stakes last year?

Well a little research shows that the clear winner is Erin which sits in 12th place on the girls’ list with 260 births registered. None of our other names appear in the top 20, and in fact only one other scrapes into the top 50, i.e. Michael which was in 49th place on the boys’ side with 162 births registered.

Elizabeth was third in 65th position with 82 births registered. It will be interesting to see the figures next year to see if Elizabeth will increase in popularity during the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee.

Norah was fourth in 927th position on the girls’ list with just 3 births registered and finally Theresa was in 1389th position with just 2 births registered.

So, at the moment, we have one very popular name, a couple of fairly popular names and two that are much less popular. It will be interesting to see how this changes over time.