James and Grace most popular baby names in Northern Ireland in 2020

James and Grace have emerged as the most popular baby names in Northern Ireland last year.

They were the most frequent first names given to babies whose births were registered in 2020.

Grace has held the top spot in the region for baby girls since 2018, while James has been the most popular for baby boys for the past six years.

The next most popular names for girls last year include Emily in second place followed by Isla, Fiadh, Olivia, Sophia, Sophie, Amelia, Lucy, Ella and Freya.

For boys, Jack was the second most popular name followed by Noah, Charlie, Oliver, Thomas, Finn, Theo, Cillian and Harry.

Fiadh entered the top 10 for girls names for the first time since the reporting of baby names began in 1997, and the names Arabella, Aoibheann, and Matilda were also recorded as growing in popularity last year.

Some of the more unique names given to baby girls in 2020 included Dior, Divine, Ever, Harley-Quinn, Nirvana, Porsche and Vogue.

For boys, Cillian and Finn joined the top 10 for the first time in 2020, while Senan, Kai and Brody also become more popular.

Some of the less common names for boys in 2020 included Bono, Bowie, Denzel, Jagger, Maverick, River, Rocky, Triumph and Wolfe.

The data was compiled by the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency for the Baby Names 2020 statistics.

The agency is also set to launch a new interactive baby names search tool which can be used to find out more information about the names registered.

It facilitates name searches by rank, number of babies registered with that name, meaning and origin. The dashboard will be available via a link on the main baby names web page.