Seán and Emma top the most popular names for babies for the second year in a row, according to 2004 statistics.
The same boys names have been in the top five since 1999 - Seán, Jack, Conor, Adam and James - with only their order changing from year to year.
This year, for the girls, Amy replaced Ciara in the top five to take fourth place and Katie, Sarah and Aoife came in second, third and fifth position consecutively.
Although the top five positions for boys' names remain firm favourites, seven new names entered the top 100: Charles, Christian, Hugh, Noah, Odhran, Rian and Thomas.
The highest new entry was Noah, which rose from 132nd place in 2003 to reach 79th place.
There were four first-time entries to the top 100 girls names: Alex, Amelia, Kayla and Orlaith.
"Interestingly," said Joseph Keating from the Central Statistics Office, who evaluated the statistics, "Alex appears in the top 100 boys' and girls' names for 2004. Alex came in 26th position in boys and 93rd in girls."
The highest new entry in the top 100 names for girls was Isabel, which climbed from 115th place in 2003 to reach 67th place in 2004. The popularity of Noah has been growing steadily for many years. In 1999, Noah ranked in 213th position while in 2004 it is ranked 99th, a jump of 134 places. Amelia is another name increasingly favoured.
In 1999, it ranked in 270th position, while in 2004, Amelia just made the top 100, coming in 99th place, a jump of 171 places.
Generally, girls have been given a wider variety of names than boys. In 2004, 37.5 per cent of girls were given a name not in the top 100, compared with 27.9 per cent of boys.
The most popular boys name by region were Seán (Dublin and mid-east), Jack (midwest, southeast and southwest), Conor (Border-midland) and Michael (west).
Emma was the most popular girls name everywhere except for the Border region, where Niamh was most popular.
Joshua and Alex for boys, ranked 22nd and 26th for 2004, showed the quickest growth in popularity since 1999. Last year, 364 Joshuas were registered in 2004, compared to 147 in 1999, while 322 Alexes were registered in 2004, compared to 112 in 1999.
Ella (11th) and Leah (ninth) were the girls names that showed the most significant rise in popularity since 1999.
Last year 321 more Ellas were registered in 2004 than five years earlier, while 239 more Leahs were registered in 2004 than in 1999.
A total of 61,684 babies were registered in 2004, 31,817 boys and 29,687 girls.