It is with great joy each year that I greet the ‘most popular baby names’ list, published by the National Records of Scotland.

Not only is it exciting to learn which ones top the chart (for 2015, Jack and Emily); and where my own name ranks (only one Ann-without-an-e!); but it also gives me the chance to marvel at the sheer inventiveness of parents out there.

(I was always a bit bored by my name when I was a child - but my dad insisted we had short names as our surname was such a handful. Form-filling-wise, I'm grateful for that now.)

I genuinely applaud those brave enough to call their new babies after Norse Gods (Odin – there were seven!- and Thor, just the one), 1980s Gladiators (Wolf – there was one, and she was a girl) and musical terms (one girl, fabulously called Rhythm).

I get slightly obsessed with the statistics, so stop me if I'm boring you – it’s the EIGHTH year in a row that Jack has topped the boys’ list, for example, while poor Noah has dropped out of the top 10.

The top four girls’ names are exactly the same as 2014 – after Emily, Sophie came second, Olivia was third and Isla was fourth. Ellie dropped out of the top 10, making room for Ella; and the biggest climbers overall were Leo (up 11 places to 13th), Brodie (up 12 places to 31st), Georgia (up 12 places to 27th) and Rosie (up 15 places to 35th)......

Disney princesses seem to be falling out of favour, with only Anna doing well (she trumps her sister Elsa quite spectacularly at 223 mentions compared to nine, making it into the top 20). There were only 26 Jasmines, 19 Belles and two Ariels (one was a boy).

Some Scottish parents appear to have been influenced by Game of Thrones characters, however, with Khaleesi and Arya popping up and in the battle of the seasons, Summer (74 girls) beats Autumn (19 girls) and Winter (nine girls and one boy), while Spring, probably unsurprisingly, doesn’t get a look in.

It’s disappointing to see a couple of last year’s stonkers have not reappeared – Twinkle and Hiya, for example, made it on to the list in 2014 but incredibly, never caught on.

The most unusual ones on this year’s list, though, have to be Pebbles, Papaya and Phoenixx, all girls and Testimony, a boy.

Despite our reliability on good old Jack and Emily, Scottish parents are actually getting more inventive – the numbers of different names and of unique names were well above the levels of 10, 20 or 40 years ago. In total, 1977 boys and 2714 girls were given unique first forenames.

Long may it continue. Predictions for 2016, anyone? I reckon Bowie might be popular (there was only one boy on the list for 2015) but I doubt there will be too many Trumps toddling about….