Lewis and Sophie Top Baby Names Chart

23 December 2005

The Most Popular Names in Scotland, 2005 shows that for the third year in a row, ‘Lewis’ has claimed the top spot in the 100 most popular boys’ names. Sophie has emerged as the front runner in the girls' names pushing last year’s favourite, Emma, into second place. The highest climbers in the baby name charts 2005 were Noah for boys and Ruby for girls.

Lewis and Sophie head up the list of top 100 baby names for 2005, published today by the Registrar General.

After Lewis, Jack came in at a close second and Callum climbed seven places from the 2004 list to take third position. Ellie and Amy were non-movers claiming third and fourth places respectively.

A breakdown of the Top 10 forenames given, by Scottish Council area, 2005 is also provided on our website.

Duncan Macniven, Registrar General for Scotland, said:

“As always, the list of Scotland’s favourite baby names is very interesting. Around 26,400 boys and 24,700 girls names have been registered. More than 5800 different first names were chosen this year and around 1500 boys and 2200 girls were given unique names.

“This year we have seen some change in the top 50 names for boys, with a return to more traditional names. Daniel and Matthew both moved up two places to make the top 10, replacing Liam (down four places to 11) and Ben (down four places to 12). Calum, Ewan and Jake have leapt into the top 50, while Noah, Lennon and Harvey have joined the top 100 for the first time.

“For girls, the name game was fairly static. The only new entrant to the top 10 is Rebecca (up two places to 9) replacing Hannah (down 1 place to 11). The biggest climber is Ruby who has climbed 70 places to reach 43. Other names to make significant advances towards the top spot are Kayla (up 28 places to 47), Paige (up 17 places to 44), Eva (up 15 places to 34) and Madison (up 24 places to 62).

“Names which took a notable fall in popularity in 2005 include Keiran, Jordan and Shaun for boys and Abby, Courtney and Taylor for girls. Baby names to drop out of the top 100 altogether were Jonathan, Jason, Hamish and Patrick plus Charlie, Danielle, Alexandra, Kelsey, Stephanie, Chelsea and Caitlyn.

“Favourites returning to the top 100 included Mohammed, George and Hayley.”

The top 50 boys’ names accounted for 53 per cent of total names registered and the top 50 girls' names accounted for 45 per cent of the registrations.