In case you missed it, Lily is the number one baby name in Ireland. The name topped the CSO list in 2025 for the first time since they began tracking monikers in 1964.
Lily first started to gain popularity in 1997 when 15 tots were given the name, and it has been steadily climbing up the ranks since then. Last year, more than 300 babies were named Lily.
It’s most popular in Cork, Wicklow, Meath, Kildare, south Dublin and Dublin city – and I didn’t need official stats to tell me that. There are more Lilys in Dublin than you can shake a stick at.
The 15 OG Lilys who debuted in the late 1990s are about 28 years old now, but the majority I see are aged between five and nine with, as now we know, plenty more coming up the ranks.
School is chock-full of them; we hear “Lily!” shouted across aisles in supermarkets; tiny strangers’ heads pop up when we call out Lily in the playground.
We can’t have a play centre birthday party without surnames needed to distinguish one child from another.
As a toddler Lily found the L in her name a tongue twister, so she called herself Ninny – the nickname still sticks – while her little sister settled on La La, another variant we use. Sometimes in a world full of Lilys it is only her pet names that stand out.
But despite the popularity of the name and the bustling bouquet of little girls called Lil cruising the capital, I came across the name that would one day be hers in the pages of one of my favourite books, published all the way back in 1991.
When I was a kid, I was a voracious reader. I couldn’t put a book down. I read so fast my parents used to quiz me about a book to believe I had read it in full, instead of just skimming it.
Lily holding The Summer of Lily and Esme. Photograph: Fiona Ellis
I didn’t get books as presents much; they’d barely last a couple of hours. In school I was given The Secret Garden to read instead of Ann and Barry. I remember doing one of those “advanced” tests as a girl to see if I was gifted. I wasn’t. I just liked reading and could read fast.
And I would read literally anything. One of my favourite tomes was The Worst Journey in the World, a 1922 memoir by Apsley Cherry-Garrard about Robert Falcon Scott’s doomed expedition to the South Pole in the early 1900s. It was a Penguin copy that consisted of at least two volumes. Another was Anne of Green Gables.
There was no rhyme or reason to what I would read. They were a gateway to another world: sometimes I’d look up with a start that instead of being in Narnia, or the South Pole, or spending summer term in Malory Towers, I was lying on my bed with my nose in a book.
One of the books that stood out to me most was Irish author John Quinn’s The Summer of Lily & Esme. It tells the story of two elderly sisters who think they are little girls, and, with the help of a boy who moves next door, solve a mystery.
It is bittersweet, and sad and funny, and I loved it. And I loved the names Lily and Esme. The name Esme stuck out for me first (also gaining popularity – 35 baby girls were recorded with the name Esme last year), but I tucked both names away and when my daughter arrived decades after I read the book and hoarded the names, she suited the floral tribute more.
It might have gone on in my memory as a favourite book and pretty name for my firstborn if my sister-in-law Kelly hadn’t contacted John Quinn ahead of Lily’s first birthday.
Letter from John Quinn to Lily on her first birthday. Photograph: Fiona Ellis
His reply became family lore and instilled a sense of pride in Lily about the origin of her name – and is inspiring a budding love for reading that Quinn, who died this year, would surely be proud of.
He and I share the same love for reading and its transformative powers and it was clear he was touched to learn of his character inspiring a name. As a birthday gift he sent Lily a copy of the book, signed, and a note that she is just now old enough to read.
“Dear Lily, I really hope you enjoy The Summer of Lily & Esme. I wrote it a long time ago, in 1991, and it won the Children’s Book of the Year in 1992. I am proud to say it has never been out of print since then, and many people, including your Mum and your Auntie Kelly, have enjoyed it.”
He continued: “A book is a very special friend that can take you to many places and introduce you to many people. You can forget where you are and go on many adventures. A book is like a magic carpet, really. So I hope you will have many books in your life and that your life will be all the richer for them. Be happy and enjoy your life.”
[ The TV in our Airbnb was the size of a ping-pong table hung on a wallOpens in new window ]
Lily, who just turned eight, cried when I told her John Quinn died this year. We had recently spoken about reading the book together and writing to him to tell him how she grew up. That she loved reading, her friends, art and trampolining.
We won’t get a chance to update him on what Lily thought of the book from where her name came. But Quinn leaves a legacy of inspiring one little reader decades ago, and another one today.