According to the annual reports published by the Central Statistics Office of Ireland, Jack and Sophie were the most popular babies' names registered in 2009. Jack retains the top position it held in 2007 and 2008. This is the first time Sophie has taken the number one spot, climbing up five places from 6th in 2008.

There were 1,061 boys named Jack this year, 134 more than the number of boys named Sean. There were 635 girls named Sophie, only five more than the number of girls named Ava.

The top five boys' names also made up the top five in 2007 and 2008. Four of the top five boys' names (Jack, Sean, Conor and James) have been in the top 5 since 1998, with only their order changing from year to year. Daniel entered the top 5 at number four in 2007, but had been ranked 6th from 2002 to 2006.

There has been more variation in the girls' top 5. While Emma and Sarah have been in the top five since 1998, this is a first for Grace. Ava entered the top 5 last year and Sophie has been in the top five twice since 1998 - in 2006 and 2007.

There were three first time entries to the top 100 for boys since 1998: Bobby, Shay and Szymon. The highest new entry at number 85 was Bobby, which rose 24 places from the 109th in 2008. The names rising most in popularity in the year were Szymon (up 30 places) and Lucas (up 25 places).

There were six first time entries to the top 100 for girls since 1998: Layla, Oliwia, Hollie, Madison, Daisy and Emilia. The highest new entry was Layla, climbing 32 places. The baby girl name with the highest gain was Daisy, up 61 places.

In general, these lists show that girls are given a wider variety of names than boys are. There were 4,816 girls' names, but only 3,924 boys' names registered in 2009. 56.5% of girls and 65.0% of boys were given a name in the top 100.

Jack, the most popular boys' name, was also most popular within six of the eight Regional Authority areas (Border, Midland, Mid-East, Mid-west, South-East, and South-West). Daniel was the most popular name in the Dublin region while Sean took the number one place in the Western Region.

Sophie also featured as the most popular girls' name in the Dublin, Mid-East, Mid-West and South-East regions. Ava took the number one place in the Border and South-West, while Emma was the most popular name in the Midlands Region.

Notes: These results are based on the analysis of the first names recorded on birth returns for registration and vital statistics, begun by the Central Statistics Office of Ireland in 1998. All birth notifications in 2009 included baby's first name when the statistical return was sent to the CSO. Only the first name was used for this analysis. Names containing accents have been recorded without those accents and different spellings of a name have been treated as separate names.