FROM THE ARCHIVES:Someone with the initials D.P.M. analysed the most popular names for boys and girls among the lists of births in The Irish Times in 1958. – JOE JOYCE
Anyone might think it difficult enough to think up offhand a score of different names for boys, or a like number for girls. Yet Irish parents have contrived to assign some 140 different names for sons and some 170 for daughters – thus indicating apparently a greater variety of names for girls.
Of course, while boys have only saints and heroes to take their names from, girls borrow as well from various other sources – months of the year (Avril, May, June); flowers (Rose, Violet, Daisy etc); trees, shrubs, creepers (Hazel, Heather, Virginia) and so on.
It is not easy for one who is not a nomenclaturist (or whatever a collector of names is called) always to know whether certain variations in the spelling of a name are actually the same name or not. There is no difficulty, of course, about such obvious variations as Denis and Dennis, Ann and Anne, and a few more.
But what about Elspeth and Elizabeth, Jeremy and Jerome, Noreen and Nora, Birgitte and Brigid, and quite a few more, not to mention the quartet Catherine and Kathrine and Kathryn and Caitríona? Then some parents plump for the Irish form and others for the English, as in Ciarán and Kieran, Diarmuid and Dermot, Seán or Eoin and John, Bairbre and Barbara; and there are even variations in the Irish form, as in Shivaun and Siobhán, Fionnuala and Fionnghula.
It is remarkable how many names that were the vogue a couple of generations ago, such as Tom, Dick or Harry . . . or Joseph, Charles, Edward, George, have lapsed in favour of the now more general Ian, Alan, Kevin, Nigel and Dermot. And, likewise, in the case of girls. Alice, Isabel, Mabel, Dorothy have given place to such names as Fiona, Gillian, Sandra, Carol.
How David had such a runaway victory in the boys’ names is strange. Would it ever be that the cue is being taken from England, where David and John topped the list last year? Mary, of course, was an obvious first for the girls; but, again as in England, she was run pretty close by Anne. The fondness for Gillian seems also something which doubtless only the parents can account for. The complete absence of Henry, if not of Louis, too, is quite remarkable, as also of Alice and Nora – though Alys and Noreen are there.
Below are details of names which occurred five or more times, showing the order of their popularity: 34, David; 23, John; 21, Michael; 17, Peter; 16, Ian (Jan); 14, Paul; 13, Patrick; 11, Mark, Stephen; 9, Alan, James; 8, Andrew, Brian, William; 7 Richard, Robert; 6, Francis, Simon, Timothy; 5, Anthony, Conor, Derek, Dermot, Kenneth, Kevin, Nicholas, Nigel, Raymond; 16, Mary; 14, Ann (Anne), Susan (Susanne, Suzanne), Gillian (Jillian); 10, Elizabeth, Helen (Helene); 8, Carol, Fiona, Sandra; 7, Jane; 6, Barbara, Elaine, Heather, Janet (Jeannette), Karen, Ruth; 5, Alison, Hilary, Patricia, Wendy.
http://url.ie/dthl