Baby girls were born just minutes apart on Christmas Day morning at King Edward VII Memorial Hospital.

Nevaeh Tnes Darrell was welcomed into the world by her mother Germaine Darrell, 33, just before 10.30am, followed shortly afterwards by Xari Wade, to parents Arianna Hodgson and Kyle Wade.

“I didn’t plan for Christmas Day — the due date was the 31st, so I planned for New Year’s,” a beaming Ms Darrell told The Royal Gazette. “She just decided to come early.”

Nevaeh Tnes is “heaven sent” backwards, she explained. “I picked her name out a while ago; it just so happened she arrived today, so it worked out well.”

Her mother Marion Darrell was preparing Christmas dinner and got no chance to rest in between visiting the hospital with her father Alvin Darrell.

At 7lbs, 8oz, Nevaeh Tnes is the biggest newborn out of her brother Zion Darrell-Spence, six, and sister Naimah Darrell-Coffee, ten. Ms Darrell said she planned to show her newest child to her grandmother, Louise Franks, who turned 101 in November.

Just up the hallway, Ms Hodgson cradled sleeping Xari, dressed in Christmas pyjamas, while mother Anna Ryden, father Odinga Hodgson and sister Rhiannon looked on. Proud father Mr Wade had taken a break for some Christmas food.

For 22-year-old Ms Hodgson, of Smith’s, who graduated from university out in California in June, Xari is her first child — and, again, the occasion came as a Christmas surprise, weighing in at 6lbs, 12.8oz. “She was due on Friday,” she said, adding that the baby’s father had expected Xari to be born in January. “Everybody else was begging me to have her on Christmas. I didn’t want to be in the hospital for Christmas Day, but here we are.”

Her baby’s first Christmas stocking had already been hung out at home.

“I guess she wanted to make her appearance for Christmas,” Ms Hodgson said.