Jack and Emily were the most popular names given to babies in England and Wales in 2004. Jack has now been the top boys' name for ten years while Emily has been most popular for two years.

Chloe, the most popular girls' name for seven years until 2002 dropped to number five, behind Ellie, Jessica and Sophie. Parents of baby boys have remained consistent in their choices, with the top five of Jack, Joshua, Thomas, James and Daniel unchanged since 2002.

Looking at the top 50 names for boys, Henry jumped six places to enter at 48, followed by Toby, up one place to 50. David and Reece dropped out of the top 50.

Last year's big climber Alfie was less popular this year, down nine places to 27, while Charlie went up nine places to 16. Mohammed went up again to enter the top 20 for the first time.

Evie was the highest new entry in the girls' top 50, up 22 places to 39. Other new entries for girls were Madison (up 30 to 43) - Maddison also featured in the top 100 - and Niamh (up seven to 48).

Rachel, Sarah and Shannon all dropped out of the top 50. Other leading girls' names increasing in 2004 were Lily (up eight to number 16), Isabelle (up 12 to 30) and Ruby (up 19 to 31).

In Wales, the top boys' name was Joshua ahead of Jack with Dylan, Ethan, Rhys and Morgan also making the top 10. Megan was most popular for girls in Wales with Emily in fourth and Ffion and Caitlin also making the top 10.

Some up-and-coming girls' names that didn't make this year's top 50 were Keira (up 100 places to 51) and Kiera (up 30 to 92). If the two spellings were added together they would have been 30th most popular. Scarlett jumped 53 places to 72.

Leo showed a big increase for boys (up 22 places to 59), as did Louie (up 21 to 91) and Freddie (up 23 to 96).

Less common boys' names that showed noticeable increases in popularity in 2004 but are not high enough to rank in the top 100 include Bobby, Ashton and Jenson. The girls' names Maya, Sienna and Abi all showed big increases in popularity, although numbers remain relatively low.

A further look at this year's popular names can be seen on the National Statistics website:
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/CCI/nugget.asp?ID=184