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Lucía and Hugo are the top baby names in Spain

Spain's most popular baby names have been revealed by Spain's national statistics office, with parents choosing more traditional names over modern monikers.

Published: 21 May 2015 09:35 CEST
Lucía and Hugo are the top baby names in Spain
Photo of a baby: Shutterstock

Spain’s national statistics office (INE) has released a list of the 100 most popular baby names in 2013 (the most up to date data) and the trend is still very much geared towards the traditional.

The information, released on Wednesday, showed the most popular names of the 425,390 births registered in Spain in 2013.

GIRLS 

  1. Lucía
  2. María
  3. Paula
  4. Daniela
  5. Martina
  6. Carla
  7. Sara
  8. Sofía
  9. Valeria
  10. Julia

BOYS

  1. Hugo
  2. Daniel
  3. Pablo
  4. Alejandro
  5. Álvaro
  6. Adrián
  7. David
  8. Mario
  9. Diego
  10. Javier 

While the names are relatively traditional there seems to be a trend for names that are more international; Lucía, María and Sara, for example, are also pronounced the same in English. 

The youngest daughter of Spain's King Felipe and Queen Letizia (left) was named Sofia after her grandmother, Queen Sofia. Photo: AFP

Apart from María, religious names are conspicuous in their absence from the top ten – popular names for babies born in the 1950s and 1960s included María Jesús (Mary Jesus), María Concepción (Mary Conception) and Encarnación (Incarnation). Similarly the once popular male name Jesús does not appear on the list. 

The statistics also revealed the most common Spanish surnames. Garcia tops the list followed by Gonzalez and Rodriguez. 

This year's Spanish Eurovision hopeful, Edurne Garcia, has the most common Spanish surname. Photo: Elena Volotova (EBU)

The figures also revealed the most common names in Spain across all ages. 

For women, the most common name is Maria Carmen, followed by Maria, Carmen, Josefa and Isabel.

For men, Antonio is the most common name, followed by Jose, Manuel, Francisco and Juan. 

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NAMES

Adolf, Alexa, Greta: These are the names Germans don’t want to give their kids

History, technology and current political trends all seem to have an influence when German parents decide on names for their children, a new survey shows.

Published: 25 March 2021 10:28 CET
Adolf, Alexa, Greta: These are the names Germans don’t want to give their kids
File photo: dpa | Fabian Strauch

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Adolf is the least popular name for Germans to give their children. 

While Adolphus was a relatively popular name in the first part of the 20th century, its association primarily with Adolf Hitler has since made it taboo.

A survey brought out by YouGov on Thursday shows that 89 percent of Germans say it is “unlikely” they would call their child Adolf, although 8 percent still say it is “likely” they would do so.

READ ALSO: What it’s like to share a name with the world’s most notorious dictator

Alexa, the name of Amazon’s virtual assistant, is also rather unpopular, with 79 percent of respondents saying they would probably not pick this as a name for their child.

Kevin, a name strongly associated with the fashion of giving children American names during the communist era in East German, is also now unpopular. Some 80 percent say they wouldn’t give their child this name.

According to a survey done in 2011, men called Kevin also have less luck in finding love online, presumably because of the negative associations of the once popular name.

For girls, Greta seems to be unpopular, with three quarters of respondents saying they wouldn’t use it as a name for their child. YouGov says that “perhaps people have the polarizing climate activist Greta Thunberg in the backs of their minds.”

Asked what they believed has the most impact on how names are chosen, the respondents said that family and ethnic background have an overwhelmingly positive influence.

Politics and current trends on the other hand were seen to have a generally negative impact on the favourability of names.

The survey also found out that Germans are generally very happy with their given names, with 84 percent voicing satisfaction and just 13 percent expressing dissatisfaction.

The results come from a representative study of 2,058 people in Germany between February 12th and February 15th.

SEE ALSO: These are Germany’s most popular baby names for 2020

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