Ontario's most popular baby names for 2015: Sophia, Jackson top Olivia, Liam
New way of reporting data reflects trend toward different spellings for same name
Sophia and Jackson are the most popular baby names in Ontario, overtaking Olivia and Liam when different spellings of similar sounding names are grouped together, according to the provincial government.
The top girls names are:
- Sophia/Sofia/Sofiya
- Olivia
- Emma/Ema
- Ava/Avah
- Charlotte
The top boys names are:
- Jackson/Jaxon/Jaxson/Jaxen/Jaxxon/Jaxyn
- Liam
- Lucas/Lukas
- Jacob/Jakob/Jaycob
- Ethan
It's the first time the province has calculated the popularity of baby names in such a way, in an effort to reflect the impact of non-traditional spellings.
The Ministry of Government and Consumer Services says the new calculation shows a new trend of parents going with different spellings of a name.
The government has also put out a traditional top names list -- which ranks each named based on its exact spelling -- which has Olivia and Liam remaining the most common choices for the fourth year in a row.
The baby name lists reflect data collected in 2014.
With files from The Canadian Press