Babies dubbed ‘demigod’, ‘boy’, ‘banks’ and ‘pasty’ set record for unique names

Banks, Damon and Demigod were among the weirder names given to babies in Scotland last year, new figures show.

National Records of Scotland (NRS) said the names were among a record number of names given to a child in 2023, with a further 2,362 unique names for boys including ‘Boy’, ‘Demigod’, ‘Howl’ and “Shady”.

Among the 2,983 unique names for girls are Alloy, Costly, Pasty, Wynter-J, La and Na.

Luca has become Scotland’s most popular baby boy name for the first time, knocking Noah into second place.

Isla returns to the top of the list of girls’ names for the first time since 2020, with 274 births replacing Olivia.

“More names are used today than in previous generations,” said NRS statistician Phillipa Haxton.

“The number of different names given to boys reached an all-time high in 2023, as did the number of unique names given to only one child in a year.

“The same thing happens with girls’ names, and girls still have more variety than boys.”

Luca moved up four spots to take the top spot, with 344 boys given the name.

Leo remains in third place, while Jack drops out of the top three boys’ names for the first time since 1996, to fourth, with Harris in fifth.

For girls, Freya remains the third most common name, followed by Emily and Amelia.

The NRS believes Pixar film Luca may be behind the name’s rise, as it ranked as the 43rd most popular boy’s name in Scotland ahead of the film’s release in 2021.

Movie magic has also been cited as one of the reasons for the rise in names associated with last summer’s blockbusters, with Cillian rising 24 spots to No. 99 after Cillian Murphy starred in “Oppenheimer”; After Margot Robbie starred in “Barbie,” Margot rose 57 spots to 106th. Movie.

New entrants into the top 100 include Oakley (up 64 spots to 87th) and Mabel (up 102 spots to 93rd).