Most popular baby names for British Columbia

For the first time, Oliver is the top name for boys born in B.C., according to the Vital Statistics Agency.

For the past five years, Emma and Olivia have been the top two names for girls born in B.C. and for the year 2015, Emma takes the prize and Olivia drop to second place. Rounding out the top five names for girls born in the province in 2015 was Emily, Sophia, and Ava.

For baby boys born in 2015, the remaining top five names include Ethan, Liam, Benjamin and Lucas.

The top names list is traditionally based on the exact spelling of names. However, when looking at different spellings of the same name, there are some new additions.

For girls, the top five names are Emma, Olivia, Sophia/Sofia, Emily/Emilee/Emilie and Amelia/Emelia/Emilia. For boys, the top five names are Jackson/Jaxon/Jaxson, Lucas/Lukas, Oliver, Ethan, and Liam.

Only names whose frequency occurs five or more times are listed.

There were 44,405 babies born in B.C. in 2015, consisting of 22,819 boys and 21,586 girls.

Preliminary statistics from Jan. 1, 2016, to Dec. 12, 2016, show that for babies born in 2016, the top name for boys is Lucas and the top name for girls is Olivia. Final statistics will not be available until later in 2017.

20 most popular boy names:

20 most popular girl names: