Have you ever noticed that the official name data for your state or territory doesn’t always tally with your own experiences? Perhaps overall there were more baby girls named Mia in your state than anything else, and yet in your own town, every second person seems to be calling their new baby Ava, or Scarlett. You might even pick a name much further down the rankings, such as Jett, but when you rock up to the first day of kindy, there’s four other boys named Jett in your son’s class (plus two named Jhett).

If you’re interested in name popularity, it helps to keep a weather eye on the local conditions. The easiest way to do this is to read the birth announcements in your local paper, which is where the information on these towns and regional centres came from.

GEELONG

Boys

1. Oliver (#3)

2. William (#2)

3. Charlie (#18)

4. Harry (#19)

5. Archie (#37)

6. Xavier (#13)

7. Jack (#1)

8. Noah (#5)

9. James (#7)

10. Cooper (#11) and Oscar (#20)

Girls

1. Amelia (#8)

2. Olivia (#3)

3. Mia (#1)

4. Sophie (#11)

5. Chloe (#4)

6. Ruby (#2)

7. Matilda (#16)

8. Sienna (#7)

9. Willow (#39

10. Ella (#9), Emily (#12), Evie (#24), Milla (#35) and Zoe (#15)

BALLARAT [pictured]

A lady named Ruth Matthews has been collating name data from birth notices in “The Courier” since 1964, after the birth of her first child. Trends she has noticed include a wider pool of names (107 names for boys in 1965, compared to 235 in 2011), variant spellings of popular names, and unisex names. Mrs Matthews counts similar names as one.

Boys

1. Cooper (#11)

2. Harry (#19) or Harrison (#29)

3. Jack (#1) or Jackson (#30)

4. Oliver (#3), Will (-) or William (#2)

5. Thomas (#6) or Tom (-)

6. James (#7)

7. Max (#14) or Maxwell (-), Xavier (#13)

8. Lachlan (#10)

Girls

1. Ruby (#2)

2. Charlotte (#5), Lily (#10)

3. Mia (#1)

4. Grace (#14) or Gracie (-), Lucy (#17), Maddison (#43)

5. Isabella (#6), Olivia (#3)

6. Olive (#82), Chloe (#4), Evie (#24), Matilda (#16), Sophie (#11)

7. Addison (#54), Annabelle (#50), Chelsea (#38), Ella (#9), Emily (#12), Sienna (#7)

THE SOUTH-WEST REGION

They collated their names even more vaguely, counting Ava and Eva as the same name, as well as Pippa and Piper.

Boys

1. Harry (#19)
2. Charlie (#18), Oliver (#3), Thomas/Tom/Tommy/Tommie (#6)
3. Archie (#37)
4. Cooper (#11), Harrison (#29), Lewis/Louis (#96), William/Will/Wil (#2)
5. Harvey (#66), Lachlan (#10)

Girls

1. Isabelle/Isabel/Isobel/Isabella/Bella (#26/46/-/6/88)
2. Ava/Eva (#12/27), Grace (#14)
3. Emily (#12), Madison/Maddison (#30/43), Mia (#1), Zoe (#15)
4. Amelia/Amellia/Amalia (#8), Charlotte (#5), Pippa/Piper (-/#75), Sophie (#11)

Another way to keep track of local baby names is to contact the local hospital in your area, to see if someone makes a public record of the most popular baby names.

At Bacchus Marsh and Melton Regional Hospital, just outside Melbourne, the most popular name for girls was Ruby, and the most popular name for boys was either Lachlan or Ryan. Other popular girls names were Isabelle, Lilly, Olivia, Sienna, Zoe, Amelia, Ava, Ellie, Hayley and Matilda, and for the boys, it was Cooper, Jack, Thomas and Tyler. In Bacchus Marsh, Xavier, Jaxon and Ryder are considered unusual names.

On the girls’ chart, Ruby went up two places to make #1, while Ella, #1 for 2010, sunk ten places.

The biggest riser was Sophie, going up six places, and Scarlett also rose up the ranks. Chloe and Lily both dropped three places, so it seemed as if S names became more popular, while names with a strong L, ending with an -ee sound were failing.

Remaining stable (not changing more than two places) were Mia, Emily, Isabella, Olivia, Ava, Grace and Hannah. Charlotte, Sienna, Amelia and Zoe didn’t budge at all.

Jessica, Lucy and Lilly dropped out of the Top 20; in the case of the last two, it does seem that the L-sound names have had their day.

Replacing them were three names returning to the Top 20 – Matilda and Emma, last seen in 2009; and Madison, last seen in 2008. In fact, there was a real feeling of “more of the same please” from the girls Top 20.

On the boys’ Top 20, there was a bit more colour and movement. Oliver went up four places to reach #1, while Jack was nudged down from the top spot to #2.

Tyler was the big success story, shooting up eleven places, and Ethan, Noah, Liam and Jacob also made significant gains.

Joshua dropped a massive fourteen places, and Riley, Lachlan, James and Samuel also fell down the charts. I do think that Riley is gradually being replaced by other surname-y boys’ names.

William, Lucas, Max, Thomas, Charlie, Cooper and Alexander remained steady, with little change.

There was only one new name on the boys’ chart, but unlike the girls’, this one was genuinely new to the Top 20 – Blake. As in other states, Harry dropped out of the Top 20; this does seem to be one name which we will be seeing less often.

As in other states, Flynn did well, joining the Top 100 for the first time. However, while Charlie was Top 100 for both boys and girls in Victoria and the ACT, in South Australia Charlie remains a boys’ name, with Charli still the preferred spelling on the girls’ chart.

As in other states, there was a noticeable trend for girls’ names to remain relatively stable, while boys’ names were more likely to experience changes in popularity. This goes against conventional wisdom that parents tend to be conservative with naming boys, sticking to the same old names year after year, while girls’ names are prone to fickle fashion. Maybe it’s about time some of the other conventional wisdoms about gender in names gets a rethink?