Tuesday, January 30, 2007

 

News from the General Register Office for Scotland

GROS publishes a list each year of the first names given to babies in Scotland, and, since our boy obviously features in the 2006 report, I would like to report the following news:

This is the list of all the names given in Scotland in 2006...
http://www.gro-scotland.gov.uk/files1/stats/pop-names-06-t4.pdf
... there were 139 Rorys this year. Hello to the 138 other baby Rorys! I'm sure your babies are very nearly as nice as ours ;-)


As you will see, rather more courageous spellings included Rori (2 babies in 2006); Rorie (1); Ruaidhri (2); Ruairdh (1); Ruairi (8); Ruairidh (26); Ruaraidh (6); Ruari (11); and Ruaridh (19). Hmm! That's a lot of choice. In the hospital, we had thought about going for a less Anglicised-type spelling but, frankly, looking at this list, I am now glad we didn't... I'd like him to be able to spell his name confidently before he's, like, ten...

Here's the top 100 names ranked by popularity...
http://www.gro-scotland.gov.uk/files1/stats/pop-names-06-t2.pdf
... this puts Rory, with our plain vanilla spelling, in 54th place in terms of overall popularity, just above Christopher (hah! eat my dust!), and just below Jay (Jay! I mean, it's a fine letter and everything, but really!).
Here's the top 10 names by council area...
http://www.gro-scotland.gov.uk/files1/stats/pop-names-06-t3.pdf

... Rory is nowhere to be seen, of course, though the variant Ruairidh was seventh most popular in the Western Isles (but that's not too hard to achieve - that was on the basis of 3 babies!!).

And Rory's cousins? Isla's a pretty popular name, 19th overall for girls, and Niamh not far behind at all at 24th most popular.

I also noticed that there were 6 Noahs - and I know 2 of them! What's the chances?! But baby Cathal's probably got the rarest name amongst babies I know - there were only 3 of them last year... (so, if they ever had a reunion, you wouldn't need to hire a hall...)

Comments:
Wow, trivia that has personal signifigance for us! I will now spend the afternoon checking the charts instead of doing any work :)

Would love a toddling/BLW conference in the park, could you email me (lauranen@gmail.com) & we'll arrange a time.

Laura @ Newbrowne
 
Thanks for writing this.
 
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