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Sadie O'Driscoll obviously not interested in what her Dad is saying. Rick Rycroft/PA

Jack and Emily remain top dogs but celebrity babies make their mark

Dia dhuit is mise…

FOR THE EIGHTH year in a row, Jack is the most popular name for baby boys in Ireland. Emily also continues to extend her dominance among baby girls, taking the number one spot for the fourth consecutive year.

To enforce how we really are a predictable bunch, the top five boys names have been the same since 2007. Jack, James, Daniel, Conor and Sean have all featured in various arrangements, with Jack ruling each year, naturally.

We’re obviously into our vowels when naming baby girls, with the 2013 top five being made up of Emily, Emma, Sophie, Ella and Amelia.

Emily, the most popular girls’ name, has been in the top five in five of the last six years. Emma has been in the top four most popular names since 2007 while Amelia has climbed steadily in popularity each year.

Dataconversion_BoysNames Data Conversion Direct Data Conversion Direct

There were 764 Jacks born last last year out of 35,272 baby boys. That’s about one Jack for every 46 baby boys born last year, or a ‘Jack-rate’ of 2.2 per cent.

Similarly, there were 625 new Emilys last year out of 33,658 that were born. About one Emily for every 53 baby girls.

But there have been some new entries into the top 100 chart for both boys and girls.

For the lads, they both begin with ‘K’. The highest new entry at number 85 was Kai rising from 103rd place in 2012. The name rising most in popularity in the year was Kayden which has shot up 44 places to 89th

Portugal England Soccer WCup Wayne Rooney holds up his son Kai, a name that is now 85th in the boy rankings. Coincidence? AP / Press Association Images AP / Press Association Images / Press Association Images

On the the girls side of things the pull of celebrity babies also seems to be irresistible, with Sadie shooting up a massive 62 places in the female baby chart to 77th place. But even that impressive performance can’t compare with the irresistible rise of Fiadh, which is up 64 places to 82nd.

Other new entries into the baby girl Hot 100 were Sienna and Poppy.

Rugby Union - RBS Six Nations - Ireland v Italy - Aviva Stadium Ireland's most famous baby Sadie is already influencing naming trends. EMPICS Sport EMPICS Sport

1963

Fifty years ago last year was the year one of the most famous ever Jacks died. JFK might have been affectionately referred to as Jack, but even his given name John was Ireland’s number one boys baby name.

Perhaps not surprisingly, John and Mary were the most popular babies’ names registered in 1963. That year, we had 3,892 new Johns and 3,721 new Marys

The top five boys’ names in 1963 were John, Patrick, Michael, Paul and James. Of these five, only James is hanging on in there in the top five.

For girls, we had a rather regal top five of Mary, Margaret, Catherine, Ann and Anne. None of these featured in the top five last year and none of the top 1o from 1963 are still there either. Poor girls.

Dataconversion_GirlsNames Data Conversion Direct Data Conversion Direct

Read: Which baby names are most common on first passports? >

Read: It’s now illegal to call your child ‘Facebook’ in parts of Mexico >

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59 Comments
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    Mute One Human Being
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    Oct 23rd 2014, 12:43 PM

    Now if only he could reduce the administration staff and increase frontline staff then we might go towards fixing some of the issues within the Irish healthcare system.

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    Mute David Burke
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    Oct 23rd 2014, 1:04 PM

    Everyone likes the sound of that but it’s often madness.

    Medical treatment requires admin so appointments get scheduled and the right leg gets chopped off.

    You get rid of the admin staff and the paperwork doesn’t go away. So instead of €30,000 a year clerical worker doing the paperwork you have a an experienced highly qualified senior pediatric nurse earning €70,000 doing the paperwork.

    Blanket calls to get rid of admin staff don’t make sense. Bloods still need to go to the labs, results collected, patient files put together and then filed. Who does that work if you get rid of admin staff.

    Health systems are complicated and it’s universal setup. For every soldier on the front line in the US military are there are 3 in logistics, communication, support, intelligence, command etc.

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    Mute Peter M Buchanan
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    Oct 23rd 2014, 1:16 PM

    Everything here of IT ???

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    Mute One Human Being
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    Oct 23rd 2014, 2:29 PM

    I understand the need for some administrative staff but during the amalgamation of the Hse lots of areas where merged thus creating multiple areas with staff doing the same job. While getting two letters to remind you of an appointment is good. The vast wastage is what’s is dragging the health board into overspending each year.

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    Mute Scarr
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    Oct 23rd 2014, 2:30 PM

    Any particular % of admin staff you would like to sack? It’s normally a 50% figure people pick out of their ar$e when they raise this overly simplistic solution to a complex problem.
    Does anyone honestly think that chopping a bunch of admin heads is going to cure health? If you do, you’re a bit of a plonker.

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    Mute Marguerite Hoiby
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    Oct 23rd 2014, 5:05 PM

    what you state here that admin staff do can be achieved with proper IT systems in place.

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    Mute Triona Murphy
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    Oct 23rd 2014, 9:46 PM

    Couldn’t agree more.a careful look at all the grade 8s however…..??

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    Mute Ryan Carroll
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    Oct 23rd 2014, 12:44 PM

    This is the same tinkering around the edges that M Martin took credit for…certain illnesses have gone down….er…ok great…but we were expecting a big set of reforms lads and so in contrast to that your improvements look pretty small.
    Remember the UHI plan? Were the only developed country besides US that does not have universal healthcare. I think even if it was a public insurance option (where people could keep separate private insurance for private hospitals if they wanted) of 400-500 year and then EVERYTHING is covered people would still like that, hell I’d take even the messy inefficient universal private insurance plan over what we have now.
    We don’t even need to do insurance at all. The UK has a centrally funded system so does Canada, why can’t we just do that, phase that in, and leave people to buy private insurance for private hospitals separate if they so choose…everyone happy then.

    But before we do UI we need a minister with the balls to tackle the staff duplication and triplication that came when the HSE was created. The HSE was meant to REPLACE all the health boards but instead they MERGED them. The unions seem to object to even internal transfers. The second cafe in one hospital closed and they wanted to transfer the staff to a cafe at another hospital, but they refused and wanted to stay in the same hospital…so they put them in admin…people with catering experience…in admin…where two of them promptly delayed my cancer diagnoses by 4 weeks. We need to tackle this inefficiency and get UH in place, I wonder how much we’d save towards the extra 4b UH would cost if we got rid of all that surplus staff or even assigned them more efficiently?
    This is one thing that puts me off about politics there are never any bold or innovative ideas it’s all small scale thinking and tinkering.

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    Mute David Burke
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    Oct 23rd 2014, 12:58 PM

    Why not leprechauns ?

    400-500 Euro insurance which covers everything? That doesn’t exist. Wish it did, it doesn’t.

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    Mute Scarr
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    Oct 23rd 2014, 2:33 PM

    Ryan – they’ve looked at the Dutch model of uhi, a system the Dutch are getting rid of; so that’s not a good start.
    The figures for providing uhi, when we were all still talking about it, wouldn’t be far off 3 times the amount you propose in your post.

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    Mute David Burke
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    Oct 23rd 2014, 12:56 PM

    HIQA is a pain in the hole but great. Most places have HIQA reports online. You can look at nursing home or disability centres and see how they do.

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    Mute Kerry Blake
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    Oct 23rd 2014, 12:50 PM

    He would be more believable if he had taken up the nurses offer to do a hospital shift with them. At least some might think he knows what he is talking about.

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    Mute David Burke
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    Oct 23rd 2014, 12:58 PM

    He was a doctor though….

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    Mute significantrisk
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    Oct 23rd 2014, 1:00 PM

    Nonsense. A doctor doing a nursing shift is a liability. Leo served his time on the front lines – showboating and pretending to be a nurse, getting in the way, would only hinder any effort at improving care.

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    Mute Kerry Blake
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    Oct 23rd 2014, 1:31 PM

    It would mean he would experience the conditions the nurses deal with now not when he qualified. No one asked him to be a nurse just observe a bit of a difference .

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    Mute significantrisk
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    Oct 23rd 2014, 1:55 PM

    He’s well aware of the conditions our nursing colleagues work under.

    Play acting at being a nurse wouldn’t change that.

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    Mute Rory Naughton
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    Oct 23rd 2014, 2:06 PM

    I think it should be noted that he worked in medicine for a brief period of time(2 or 3 years?) and, as he mentioned, it was in a different era (pre 2007) in a very different environment. The healthcare system is far more stretched with staff morale far lower now than it was then.
    He also seems to be somewhat economical with the truth.
    For example: there is some dedicated ambulance transfer services but not the way he paints it. So there’s a neonatal service run by the 3 Dublin NICUs. Then there’s a single critical care ambulance which, unless things have changed in the past year, is run 9-5 Mon-Fri again from Dublin. Otherwise little has changed with the hospital losing a doctor/nurse for the duration of the transfer.

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    Mute Zoë Georgina
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    Oct 23rd 2014, 12:46 PM

    Not entirely sure where he’s getting his figures on long-term disabilities…

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    Mute Richard Armstrong
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    Oct 23rd 2014, 3:25 PM

    errr “in patient transfer teams” dont exist – i’ve had to do that

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    Mute edel ryan
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    Oct 23rd 2014, 4:33 PM

    The dogs on the street know the health “service” is a DISGRACE

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    Mute Andrew Halpin
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    Oct 23rd 2014, 11:50 PM

    Yeah he’s got top people formerly of the department of justice helping to run things the new way.

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