Parents play it safe with Jack and Sophie

PARENTS are playing it safe when it comes to baby naming with number one favourite Jack and top 10 regular Sophie the most popular choices for newborns last year.

Jack has been number one for boys for seven out of the 12 years that the Central Statistics Office has been recording name choices and it has never dipped further than third place in all that time.

In fact, five names – Jack, Sean, Daniel, Conor, James – have been in the top six in various orders of preference for all of that time with only Adam and Ryan moving in and out of the group to shake things up.