Above: Premier Rachel Notley, speaking at the annual announcement of top baby names, reveals that Alberta’s Minister of Justice, Kathleen Ganley, is expecting her first child.
by Morinville News Staff
For the third year in a row, Olivia is the number one name given to babies in Alberta.
The top five girls names in 2016 were Olivia (292), Emma (249), Sophia (215), Ava (207), and Emily (187). For boys Liam (277), Benjamin (252), Lucas (247), Oliver (230), and Noah (228) marked the top five names.
Alberta welcomed 55,594 babies into the world in 2016, a shortfall from 2015’s record-breaking 56,529 births. Of those children born, Emma, Sophia and Ava topped the list for girls, while Liam, Benjamin and Lucas remained popular choices for boys born in the province.
Last year, Service Alberta recorded 13,782 different baby names. Many of those reflected names from antiquity, mythology and religion, including Aphrodite, Aristotle, Artemis, Atlas, Daphne, Damaris, Lazarus, Lilith, Maximus, Nika, Octavian, Pandora, Persephone, Perseus, Pius, Torah and Troy.
The government says other original 2016 names included hybrid names, including Blue-Eagle, HarleyQuinn, Heavenjot, Joearth, Justinjot, Morningstar, Notorious-Link, Riversong, Sailor-Arthur, ScarLet and Zyron-Thunder.
Awesome, Beautiful, Brave, Comfort, Legend, Patience, Promise, Righteousness, Victorious, Temperance, and Treasure were among the names government deemed “inspiring and encouraging.”
Albertans can look up more than 95,000 names for free in the Alberta Baby Names App. The links to download the app for Android and Apple devices are available at Open.Alberta.ca.
