ALICE and James were the preferred baby names for 2001, according to the Herald's birth announcement columns.

Overall there were 214 births announced in our columns, and with exactly the same amount of boys and girls.

James was a runaway winner, with 19 of the 107 boys having it as either their first or second name.

James has been the most popular name for a boy for four of the past five years,and the most popular middle name for all five.

Alice was both popular as a first and a second name, with nine children in all bearing it. This was followed by Jayne/Jane, Ellen and Elizabeth.

Most popular first name was Hollie/Holly which was given to five children, closely followed by Chloe, Ella and Lucy/Lucie.

Jayne/Jane and Elizabeth tied for the most popular second name with seven apiece.

Alice, Ellen and Louise followed close behind.

There were a few unusual names hiding among the columns - a Niketa, Tahani and Tiarney will be causing nightmares for teachers' registration books in years to come.

And an old-fashioned twist was certainly evident through the baby name trends.

Niamh, Ruby, Joan, Verity and Rosemary were all mentioned, and Grace was quite popular for second and third names.

Variations of Ella, Ellen and Ellie would have taken the top place if considered together - there were 14 girls given these similar names.

In the boys James proved the overall favourite, followed quite a long way behind by eight Jacks, eight Michaels, eight Thomases and seven John/Jons.

Jack was the top first name, followed by Jacob, James, Sam/Samuel and Benjamin.

James was the most popular second name, with Michael, John/Jon and Thomas following.

There were some famous name combinations - for instance Jack Daniel and George Michael - and some less well-known, with Ben Bunny.

Again old-fashioned names seemed popular this year, with Fergus, Bernard, Gilbert, Seth, Arthur, Harry and Henry making appearances.

As often is the case, biblical names were very strong amid the boys' names, but there was certainly evidence of the influence of our Scottish cousins with a Hamish, Cameron and Callum.

The births of two sets of twins were announced this year - Harvey Michael and Tammi Lauren Clarke born in August and James William and Harry George Snowden born in October.

Babies from far and wide were also announced in the columns, the Clarke twins were born in Germany and we also delivered news of births from Australia and Seattle.

There were a few births that made the Herald's headlines this year as well - Christmas babies Megan Lucy Downe and Elly Sarah Shuttleworth were featured in last week's Craven Herald and Benjamin Harold Kildwick Bradley's dramatic arrival was reported earlier in the year.

He made a shock entrance into the world on August 9, en route to Airedale Hospital. His parents, Andy and Eileen, had to make an emergency stop between Cononley Lane Ends and Kildwick roundabout when Benjamin decided he couldn't wait any longer.

The baby was delivered in the car with no complications and was named after the place he was born, as well as his great grandfather who shared the same birthday.