THE most popular baby names given to children in North Wales have been released.

The Office of National Statistics have revealed what the most popular names given to new arrivals in England and Wales in their annual releases of figures for 2018.

Looking at the North Wales counties, parents have followed the trend in some areas with names that have made the national top ten – including Oliver, Harry and Olivia – but have also bucked the trend in other areas.

For Flintshire, the top choices were Noah for boys (21 born) and were on trend with the majority of England and Wales with Olivia claiming the top spot for girls (19 born).

For Wrexham, the top choices for boys was Leo (with 19 born) and Ava for girls (with 14 born).

The Isle of Anglesey has appeared to follow the national trends when selecting their baby names with Mia (9 babies) and Noah (10 babies) claiming the top spot for new arrivals.

Mia was ranked as sixth nationally and Noah as fourth.

Until 2018, Megan had been in the top 100 names for girls since 1994 but has now fallen off the list. Despite this, it proved popular with parents in Gwynedd where 11 new Megan’s have been born. Gwynedd’s top choice for boys were some traditional Welsh names of Caio and Tomos (both with 14).

For Denbighshire, the top girls name was Olivia (with 10 new babies born). Harry topped the charts in the county for boys with 13 new-borns being given the name.

Conwy was on trend for boys names as Oliver topped the charts with 13 new arrivals to the county whilst Elsie claimed the top spot with seven new baby girls given that name.

For the past year, the names which topped the national list of favourites are Olivia and Oliver.

Oliver has remained the most popular name for boys in England and Wales for six consecutive years whilst Olivia has now held the top spot amongst girls for the third year in a row.

Nick Stripe, from the Vital Statistics Outputs Branch of the Office for National Statistics, said: “Oliver and Olivia remained the most popular baby names in 2018, although there are the first signs that Oliver’s six-year reign as the number one name for boys is under threat.

“Arthur surged into the top 10 boys’ names for the first time since the 1920s, and Ada jumped into the girls’ top 100 for the first time in a century too, both perhaps inspired by characters in the BBC TV drama Peaky Blinders.

“On the flipside, the growth in the use of technology assistants in our homes may help to explain why the number of baby girls named Alexa has more than halved compared with 2017. Communicating with young children can be hard enough at the best of times.”