The baby names that took over NZ in 2018

4:04 pm on 10 January 2019

The release of the list of most popular baby names in 2018 shows that New Zealand parents are getting more creative as the years go by.

Parents are now getting creative with baby name spelling variations. Photo: 123RF

The list, released annually by Internal Affairs, found a total of 13,668 names were given to 59,302 last year.

Charlotte and Oliver have consistently held the top spot for the second year in a row, while Jack and Isla were ranked the second most popular.

The registrar-general for births, deaths and marriages, Jeff Montgomery said while the top names had not changed much, the number of unique names was increasing.

"New Zealanders are becoming increasingly creative in the way they choose to name their babies. For boys there were 30,000 boys born last year and there were 8600 different names for those boys," he said.

Asked how people were getting more creative, Mr Montgomery said it was in the way names were spelt - Oliver for example could be spelt three different ways and many variations on Ollie.

This year's list had 12 different combinations of Oliver or Ollie. Girl's names ending in a vowel including Isla, Ella, Mia and Ava were also popular.

Mia and Nikau were the top Māori girls and boys names respectively.

Oliver has been the most popular boys name for six years in a row. Oliver's female counterpart, Olivia, has been in close competition with Charlotte since 2011, with the two swapping first and second place many times.