Jack and Emily are Scotland’s top baby names

National Records of Scotland reveal most popular names in 2015

Jack and Emily were the most popular first forenames for babies whose births were registered in 2015, National Records of Scotland (NRS) announced today. Jack was the top boys’ name for an eighth consecutive year, and Emily was the top girls’ name for the second year running.

Oliver rose from fourth to become the second most popular boys' name, with James falling one place to third and Lewis down one place in fourth. Alexander climbed five places to fifth. The rest of the boys’ Top Ten was Charlie (up two places to sixth), Logan (down two places to seventh), Lucas (up one place to eighth), Harris (up three places to ninth) and three names which together were joint tenth: Jacob (up nine places); Finlay (up five places) and Daniel (down four places). Harris, Jacob and Finlay were all entrants to the boys' Top Ten; Noah (down seven places to fourteenth) dropped out of it.

The fastest climbers within the boys’ Top Twenty were Jacob, Alexander and Finlay.There were three entrants to the boys’ Top Twenty: Leo (up 11 places to 13th), Alfie (up 6 places to 17th) and Callum (up 1 place to 20th), 

The top four girls’ names were in exactly the same order as in 2014. Sophie was again the second most popular (having been top from 2005 to 2013), Olivia was third and Isla was fourth. Ava rose one place to fifth, and Jessica fell one place to sixth. Amelia remained in seventh place. Ella rose three places to eighth. Lucy (down one place to ninth) and Lily (down one place to tenth) made up the rest of the girls’ Top Ten. Ella was the only entrant to the girls’ Top Ten; Elllie (down four places to fourteenth) was the only name to drop out of it.

The fastest climbers within the girls’ Top Twenty were Anna (up four places to 16th), Ella (up three places to eighth) and Emma (up three places to 15th). There was one entrant to the girls’ Top Twenty: Eva (up four places to 18th).

Big climbers within the 2015 baby name top fifty charts include:

• Leo (up 11 places to 13th)
• Brodie (up 12 places to 31st)
• Harrison (up 13 places to 35th)
• Georgia (up 12 places to 27th)
• Rosie (up 15 places to 35th)

National Records of Scotland registered the births of 25,970 boys and 24,490 girls in the period covered by these figures. Parents chose 3,149 different first forenames for boys and 4,214 different first forenames for girls. In total, 1,977 boys and 2,714 girls were given first forenames that were unique (in the period covered by these figures). The numbers of different names, and of unique names, were well above the levels of 10, 20 or 40 years ago.

The top fifty boys’ first names accounted for 41 per cent of all those registered and the top fifty girls’ first names accounted for 39 per cent of the registrations. Jack was the first name of only 2.0 per cent of the boys, and Emily was the first name of just 1.9 per cent of the girls.

The full publication Babies' Names 2015 is available on this website.

An Infographic and two Data Visualisations are available for this publication on the NRS website.