ALBA has taken the top spot in a list of the most popular baby girl's names in France.
L'Officiel des prénoms 2024 was released on Thursday, with the Gaelic name for Scotland replacing Jade as the country’s most popular girl’s name.
The authors of the baby name study, Stéphanie Rapoport and Claire Tabarly Perrin, said the popularity of the name was probably due to the international success of two Spanish TV series, Money Heist and Cable Girls, which feature a popular actress and character by that name respectively.
There were no strong Scottish connections on the boy’s side, however, with Gabriel, Léo and Raphaël making the top three.
The Alba Party, led by former SNP leader Alex Salmond (above) hailed it as “great news”.
The party's general secretary, Chris McEleny, added that it was an “Auld Alliance revival”.
He said: “This is great news because it [the name] has been a firm favourite of mine of late and now thanks to the Auld Alliance revival perhaps Mrs M to be will take it into consideration in the future.
“But of course, Alba isn’t just shooting up the popularity charts amongst our Gaelic cousins, in Scotland we are having conversation after conversation with many independence supporters that are considering giving their support to Alba Party because they agree with a lot of what we are campaigning for in terms of the future of the North Sea Oil & Gas industry and Scotland’s energy potential, as well as the urgency that we campaign for Scotland’s independence as an immediate priority.
“It’s quite ironic that Alba is so popular amongst baby names as a lot of what we hear amongst independence supporters in regards to our common sense policies is that ‘it’s good to have the grownups back in the room.”
A full list is below:
Most popular girls names in France in 2024
1. Alba
2. Louise
3. Jade
4. Ambre
5. Emma
6. Romy
7. Rose
8. Anna
9. Alice
10. Mia
