Rían and Lily were the most popular baby names in Ireland last year, according to figures released by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) on Friday.
The top five names for baby girls in 2025 were Lily, Éabha, Fiadh, Grace and Sadie.
The top five names for newborn boys were Rían, Jack, Noah, James and Oisín.
This is the first time Rían has topped the list since the series began in 1964. Rían was the top or joint top boys’ name in 12 locations around the country, including Wicklow, Kerry and Clare.
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Prior to this, Jack had taken the top spot for boys for eight years in a row. Jack had held the number one position every year since 2007, with the exception of 2016, when James was the most popular choice of name.
Jack and James have both been in the top five boys’ names since 1998.
Lily was the top or joint top girls’ name in six areas last year: Kildare, Meath, Wicklow, Dublin city, south Dublin and Cork city.
Sophie was the most popular girl’s name in 2024. It now ranks joint sixth with Emily.
The girl’s name that rose in popularity the most last year was Raya, rising 114 places to 99th place.
The boy’s name that rose in popularity the most was Naoise, up 74 places to 88th place.
Commenting on the trends in Irish baby names, Seán O’Connor, statistician at the CSO, said Rían “has been increasing in popularity since 2018 and entered the top five in 2021″.
“It was also the first time since 2018, when the CSO started including names with the síneadh fadas, that a name with a fada reached the top spot.”
O’Connor said Lily “first started to gain popularity in 1997 when 15 girls were given the name, and it has been steadily climbing up the ranks since then”.
A number of new names entered the top 100 last year: Ríadh, Gracie, Mabel, Arabella, Nancy and Raya for girls, and Levi, Dáire, Naoise, Conall, Elijah and Teidí for boys.
There were 10,336 distinct newborn names registered in 2025: 5,488 girl names and 4,848 boy names.
Murphy was the most common surname for babies born last year, followed by Kelly and O’Brien.
When releasing the latest statistics, the CSO also includes the most popular names in Ireland from 50 years ago. In 1975, Mary and John were the most common newborn names in the State.
“While John was the most popular boys’ name in 1975, it occupied the 29th position in 2025, unchanged from 2024,” O’Connor said. “For girls, Mary was the most popular name 50 years ago, whereas in 2025 it ranked in 112th position.”
For just the fourth time since 1975, Mary fell out of the top 100 list of most popular girls’ names last year.
