The most popular Irish babies' names registered in 1999 were Conor and Chloe, respectively for boys and girls. About 3.1% of baby boys were called Conor and 2.6% of baby girls were named Chloe.

The top 5 names for boys were the same as in 1998: Conor, Sean, Jack, James and Adam. For girls, Ciara and Aoife swapped the second and fourth positions on last year. Sarah remained in third place while Niamh rose one place to the 5th, replacing Emma in the top 5.

There were seven new entries to the top 100 for boys: Cameron, Diarmuid, Leon, Lorcan, Neil, Reece and Tadhg. The highest new entry for boys was Leon at 77 (+35 places).

For girls there were 11 new entries: Abbie, Abigail, Aishling, Alana, Casey, Clara, Georgia, Isobel, Katelyn, Kathleen and Lauryn. Lauryn was the highest new entry for girls at 70 (+166 places).

Girls are given a wider variety of names than boys. The top 100 accounted for just 68.1% of total girls' names compared with 79.5% of boys' names.

In three regions (Border, Midland and West) Conor was the most popular boys' name, as was Jack in another three (Mid-East, Mid-West and South-East). Sean was first in Dublin and David in the South West.

Chloe was the most popular girls' name in Dublin and shared first place with Aoife in the South East. Aoife was also first in the South West. Niamh was most popular in the Mid East Border regions. Rachel was again the favourite in the West, with Ciara in the Mid West and Sarah in the Midlands.

The results are based on an analysis of the first names recorded on birth returns for registration and vital statistics, begun by the Central Statistics Office of Ireland. Over 90% of birth notifications included the baby's first name when the statistical return was sent to the CSO in 1999.