Lists of top baby names of last year are being released. The Royals and popular culture are having some influence.

Lists of top baby names of last year are being released. The Royals and popular culture are having some influence, while non-traditional spellings are also becoming more common.
Photo Credit: CBC

Top baby names in Canada

It’s not quite the end of the year, but already the trends in naming babies from this year and last are showing up in Canada.

While the federal statistics agency StatsCan doesn’t collect this particular statistic, some provinces do, and so do other organizations such as the BabyCentre Canada.

Ann Elisabeth Samson is the editor of that website, and says names reflect a lot of things such as family history, cultural heritage, but also pop culture.

Likely influenced by pop singer Taylor Swift, the girl’s name Taylor moved up the list 50 spots to 69.

The top three girl’s names remain unchanged with Emma Olivia, and Sophia remaining as 1,2,3 this year.

There seems to be a bit more movement in boys names. Liam moves to top spot from #2 previously, and changed places with Jackson , while Logan moved into third spot.

In Ontario however, Canada’s most populous province, a slight change was noted.

The top girl’s name was Olivia, with Liam for boys. But is you account for a variety of spellings for the names Sophia and Jackson, then those two take top spots.

For the first time the province is  alculating names to account for non-traditional spelling of names.

Anne-Marie Flanagan, is a spokeswoman with the Ministry of Government and Consumer Services. Quoted by Diana Mehta in the Canadian Press, Flanagan said taking different spellings of the same name “really changes the list”, adding, “It’s a way to show this new trend of parents going with different spellings.”

She also noted the influence of pop culture with the rise of the name of Ayra and different spellings.  Ayra is a character in the popular TV show “Game of Thrones” and rose to number 10 on the provincial list for girls.

In Newfoundland in 2014 the top  boy’s name was Jackson (also Jaxxen, Jaxen, Jaxxon, Jaxon, or others) followed by Liam, and top girls name was Olivia followed by Emma.

Surprisingly Charlie sunk to 72 for boys in that province, but was number 11 for girls.

On the other side of the country in west coast British Columbia, Ethan and Liam were one and two on the list inf 2014, while for girls, Olivia and Emma were tops.

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