Getting a handle: Popular names vary from neighbourhood to neighbourhood

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Stacey and Jayson Nickol play with their two-month-old daughter, Olivia Paige. Stacey says she didn't know Olivia had become such a popular name when she picked it. (JOHN WOODS / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS ) Photo Store

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'She didn't really look like a Sasha or a Leah. When the shoe fits...' -- Steve Renn, with wife Eleanore and baby Olivia Rose (WINNIPEG FREE PRESS) Photo Store

Olivia was supposed to be a Maxx.

For much of her pregnancy, Winnipegger Stacey Nickol was convinced she was having a boy and had the name all picked out. With an extra X for good measure.

"I really didn't think we would need the girl names and I was shocked when Olivia turned out to be a girl," said Nickol. "The nurses said, 'What are you going to name her?' and I looked at Jayson, and he suggested Olivia and I agreed."

Before they set eyes on their Olivia last November, Nickol's husband was a little so-so on the name. Paige and Claire were also in the mix.

But Nickol gravitated toward Olivia for the same reason most people fancy a particular name -- she knew two Olivias and they were both sweethearts.

What she didn't know last fall was that Olivia has become an outrageously popular name in Manitoba.

According to data provided by Manitoba's vital statistics office, Olivia ranks among the most popular baby names in more than a dozen parts of the province. In Garden City alone over the last six years, there have been 17 new Olivias born. On the east side of Brandon, there were 13. Where Nickol and her family live in Fort Garry, it's the fifth most popular name.

Only Emma and Ava enjoy wider appeal.

"We also had no idea about the TV show and book series Olivia the Pig," said Nickol. "We now have several Olivia books."

Staff at Vital Stats combed through six years of birth certificate data and broke out the top names according to the province's 64 postal code prefixes -- the first three digits of each postal code that correspond with a large rural area or a smaller urban neighbourhood.

The top three or four names are pretty uniform across the province.

For girls, new parents favour the ladylike names of Olivia, Ava, Emma and Emily, with the occasional Brooklyn and Madison thrown in.

For boys, Manitobans are embracing the masculine past with Ethan, Noah and Liam toping the list.

Winnipeg's New Year's baby was even named Noah. Little Noah Ishalook doesn't quite count in Manitoba's data because he was from Nunavut, but it shows the name's widespread popularity.

Dig a little deeper in Manitoba's data, though, and regional differences begin to emerge.

Up north, where the birth rate is nearly double the provincial average, parents tend to be a little more creative and celestial with their names.

In the remote north and Thompson over the last six years, there have been at least 20 Nevaehs, which is heaven spelled backwards. At least 10 babies were named Heavenly and another 10 were blessed with the moniker Faith. There were also 19 Angels and a dozen Harmonys.

Down south, though, where Manitoba's Mennonite population is thriving, Biblical names abound, especially for boys.

Samuel is the top name in Steinbach, and Peter is popular in Winkler.

But despite Manitoba's bid to lure 20,000 immigrants a year (we hit 16,000 in 2010), we're still a pretty white-bread province.

Journalists with Openfile.ca in Toronto crunched similar baby-name data last year and found that, in addition to the Ethans and Olivias, names like Fatima and Muhammad and Gurleen top the list in neighbourhoods with vibrant immigrant populations.

Manitoba has a large First Nations population, but visible minorities count for less than 10 per cent of all Manitobans, according to the now-outdated 2006 census.

Even in The Maples, where 40 per cent of residents in the R2V postal code area are visible minorities, Ethan, Liam, Alexis and Emily are the top names.

Baby names are probably not the most sensitive indicator of a city's ethnic diversity. But it's likely Manitoba doesn't have the critical mass of minorities yet to begin changing the flavour of the top baby names.

Ahmed Durrani, who just became a dad for the third time last month, says he thinks that's changing.

"Manitoba has opened it's doors to immigration, and I don't think we're so much an Emily and Ethan province as before," said Durrani. "Although I was born and raised in Winnipeg, I have seen so many newcomers I wouldn't be surprised to see some significant changes."

Durrani, whose dad is Pakistani and who is married to a Pakistani woman, chose Arabic names in honour of the language of the Qur'an. His daughter's old Arabic name of Sakina means to have tranquility -- "although I don't think she'll live up to this... maybe later," he jokes.

And his oldest son Rashad's name means to have integrity.

Durrani's brand new son's name is Jibran, which means to reconcile or fix, as though you're mending hurt feelings.

"I also thought it sounded like a cool name -- and that it would be good for sports," he said with a wink.

Steve Renn said he and his wife Eleanore had a sizeable list of favourite names before their first baby arrived just after Christmas.

"After she was born, once we got to see her, I was holding on to her and trying to be as careful as I could not to drop her, so I couldn't get out my phone to review the list."

So Renn and his wife went from memory, tossing names around. They knew they wanted a "classic, stand-up name" that was good for a child but would also serve their daughter well as an adult, helping her to be taken seriously in the professional world.

They knew it wouldn't be Renn's top choice: Danica. Eleanore vetoed that one. She liked Illana, but that was a no-go for Renn.

"You also have to make sure the initials don't spell anything stupid," he added.

There in the hospital, Olivia just seemed to work, even though they found out later, with some disappointment, that it's a very trendy name.

"She didn't really look like a Sasha or a Leah," said Renn. "When the shoe fits..."

maryagnes.welch@freepress.mb.ca

MANITOBA BIRTHS

2010 16,252

2009 16,365

2008 15,906

2007 15,697

2006 15,005

2005 14,582

2004 14,292

2003 14,399

2002 14,332

2001 14,465

-- Source: Vital Statistics Manitoba

TOP NAMES ALL UP TO CODE

Vital Statistics Manitoba provided the Winnipeg Free Press with the top baby names over the last six years, broken down by what's called a "forward sorting area" or FSA. That's the first three digits of a postal code. There are 64 FSAs in the province. They cover big regions in rural Manitoba but smaller neighbourhoods in Winnipeg and Brandon.

Using that data, the Free Press has created an online, interactive map. You can click on your postal code prefix and find out what the most popular names are in your neighbourhood. Visit www.winnipegfreepress.com .

One caveat: There are several areas with limited or no data, especially in Winnipeg. Because of privacy rules, Vital Stats used a 10-baby threshold. In order to add a name to the list, 10 babies in that postal code prefix needed to have a particular name. In many FSAs, there were not 10 babies born with the same name. That could be because the birthrate was low, as in Flin Flon and The Pas, or because people were more creative with their names.

About this map

Manitoba Vital Statistics provided the Free Press with the top baby names for the last six years, broken down by postal "forward sortation area" -- the first three letters of a postal code -- which corresponds to a geographic area.

Because of privacy concerns, Vital Stats would only add a name to the list if 10 babies were given the name during the five-year period. In some areas, that means there is no data: no name was used ten times or more.

In some areas, 10 girls or boys were not born during the five-year period, so we have no names and no birth counts for those areas.

The data does not take into account creative or alternative spellings of the same name. For example, Hailey is a popular name in several areas, but a Haylee or a Haileigh wouldn't be added to the total.

Also note, for 2011, the data only goes up to early November.

To use this map: Use the scroll bar at left to zoom in or out of the map.  Click and drag on the map to move the view you see.  Click on any area to view a pop-up box of popular names in that area.

Interactive map by Wendy Sawatzky
Text by Mary Agnes Welch
Data provided by Manitoba Vital Statistics

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition January 14, 2012 J1