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The most popular names in Scotland, 1999

Contents

Forenames in 1999

The tables below give the top 100 boys' and girls' names in 1999
(a) in order or popularity, with changes in position since 1998.
(b) in alphabetic order.

Also available for downloading is a file containing the top 10 boys and girls names for the 32 Scottish Council Areas (Adobe Acrobat Portable Document Format)
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Boys' Names

Jack, second in 1998, replaced Ryan as the most popular name given to boys in Scotland in 1999. Lewis took second place in 1999, up two places on 1998. After five years in the number one spot, Ryan has dropped to third. The main climber in the top ten was Liam, up seven places to eighth.

There were few major climbers in the top fifty. Only Owen, up 13 places to 49th, went up by more than ten places. Lower down the top hundred, Morgan climbed 32 places to 73rd; and Ronan rose 23 places to 68th.

Girls' Names

As in 1998, Chloe was the most popular name given to girls in Scotland during 1999. Rebecca was second, up one place on 1998, and Lauren third, up five places. The biggest jumps in the top twenty were Emily, up eight places to number eleven, and Morgan, up seven places to number eighteen. Interestingly, Morgan showed a significant increase for boys as well as girls.

Just outside the top twenty there were big rises for Olivia, up 31 places to 22nd, and Niamh, up 21 places to 26th.

England and Wales

An analysis by the Office for National Statistics covering England and Wales has shown that Jack and Chloe were also the most popular names there. Further details may be found on the ONS website (www.ons.gov.uk).

Notes

All births have, by law, to be registered, and the records sent in by local registrars to the Registrar General enable him to produce tables showing the most popular first forenames, not just for a section of the population or those announced in a particular newspaper, but for all the new babies registered in Scotland.

Even the most popular names have quite a small 'market share'. Chloe and Ryan were given to only three per cent of the girls and boys born in 1999.

Quite a lot of information is available about Scottish names. In 1990 the Registrar General published a small book entitled Personal Names in Scotland, covering surnames as well as forenames and including comparisons going back to 1855. Since then the Registrar General's records have been augmented to include a computerised index to the Church of Scotland parish registers back to 1553. This enables customers to analyse the frequency of occurrence of Scottish forenames and surnames over four centuries.

Top 100 boys' names, Scotland,1999 together with changes since 1998

Note: The above table has been made available as a PDF file. When you click on the link your browser, depending on how it's been configured, will prompt you either to open the file or save it to disk.

Top 100 girls' names, Scotland,1999 together with changes since 1998

Note: The above table has been made available as a PDF file. When you click on the link your browser, depending on how it's been configured, will prompt you either to open the file or save it to disk.

Top 100 boys' and girls' names, Scotland,1999 listed alphabetically

Note: The above table has been made available as a PDF file. When you click on the link your browser, depending on how it's been configured, will prompt you either to open the file or save it to disk.


Page last updated: 6 May 2009


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