It’s all in a name for newborns....
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In Tamworth parents are bucking the trend but around Newcastle mums and dads have gone back to the future, well at least when it comes to baby names.
In NSW, William and Ruby were the top choices for newborns in 2012, followed by Oliver and Emily, Lucas and Olivia, Jack and Chloe, and Noah and Charlotte.
But looking through The Leader’s babies pages in each Thursday’s edition for 2012, local mums and dads weren’t jumping on the baby name bandwagon. William was nowhere to be seen and there was only one Ruby recorded for the year.
Instead Cooper, Connor, Hunter, Harrison and Bailey (all with varied spellings) were the top choices for boys born in the Tamworth area, while Lily, Ella, Charlotte, Isabelle and Kate took the cake for the most popular girls’ names.
On a statewide scale, the royal Kate missed out on being in the top 10, but it seems our mums and dads are much more royally-connected than their statewide counterparts – at least to the Duchess of Cambridge.
Three hours down the highway, parents in the Hunter were doing the timewarp when their newborns were delivered with ’70s-inspired names making a resurgence.
Evie – the song made famous by former Easybeats frontman Stevie Wright in 1974 – shared the top of the pops list for names with Sophie. While Mad Max which graced TV screens in 1974 could also be the muse for mums and dads with Max easing into the top slot in 2012.
Across the state, other baby names to make it into the top 10 were Ethan, Lachlan, Joshua, Thomas and James while Mia, Amelia, Isabella, Sophie and Ava rounded out the list for girls.
Chloe had held the top spot in the state in 2011, but was relegated to fourth place statewide in favour of Ruby, yet only three Tamworth and district parents opted for Chloe, Khloe and Khloee.
Other boys’ names chosen in this neck of the woods were Riley (and Ryley), Rory, James, Jaxon (and Jax), Zac, Max, Maximilian and Maxwell, Axel (and Axl), Noah and August.
Girls were a mixture of the old-fashioned – Ava, Abigail, Alexandra, Faith, Hannah, Harriet, Matilda, Molly, Stella and Violet – and more modern names such as Allegra, Ellirah, Harper, Layla, Summer, Mia and Willow.
In August, The Leader’s circulation manager Angie Pearson organised a baby photo competition in conjunction with Tamworth Shoppingworld and there were pages and pages of beautiful faces staring out at readers for weeks on end until the winners were announced.
There were 78 entrants and among them Levi was the most popular name but there was a Summer, Pepper, Lucas, Dylan, Maddison, Stella, Abigail, Molly, Henry, Phoenix and Sienna.
Overall for the year, boys outnumbered girls in The Leader’s babies’ pages published Thursdays, with boys at 124 and girls at 117 – give or take a baby or three!
And while Oasis, Bond, Turbo, Thunder or Popeye didn’t rate a mention in local baby wards, they did make it onto a different list.
Parenting website The Baby Centre compiled its own list of the most unusual baby names for 2012 from almost half a million parents across Australia.
Mums and dads registered their creative and eccentric names with the website, and the names awarded to at least two children made it onto the list.
Jazzy, Casanova, Excel, Yoga, Neon and Cobain also featured.
There was even a nod to rock legend Mick Jagger.
Maybe those parents had the moves like Jagger.