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Most Popular Baby Names in New Zealand, 2010
| 5 January 2011 | Filed under Baby Names, Boy Names, Girl Names, Popular Baby Names |
The 100 most popular baby boy and baby girl names in New Zealand have been released. The winners for 2010 were Sophie (again) and Liam (beating previous #1 Jack).
| Top Boy Names in NZ | Top Girl Names in NZ |
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I’m glad no Mongrel Mob names made the lists.
Two interesting names I did notice were Sione and Pippa:
- Sione, ranked 92nd for boys, seems to be a Tongan name. (There’s no s-sound in Maori.) In the trailer for the film Sione’s Wedding (2006) [vid], you can hear Sione at 0:07, 0:28 and 1:52. Sounds like see-O-nay or see-O-nee, or something in between.
- Pippa, ranked 95th for girls, is a contraction/diminutive of Philippa. The popularity of this one might be attributable to New Zealand television personality Pippa Wetzell.
Just for reference, New Zealand has roughly 4.3 million residents. So, population-wise, it’s about the same size as Kentucky.
Source: NZ’s Department of Internal Affairs
Incidentally, Sione is the Tongan form of the name John – in the Tongan Bible, you will find the Gospel according to ‘Sione’. According to the Tongan people I know, it’s pronounced something like SHON-ay.
Thanks Bella. Interesting–I watched a bunch of YouTube videos to hear how the name was pronounced, but I didn’t hear anyone pronounce it with an sh-sound. Maybe there are different dialects of Tongan…?
I have noticed that many of my Tongan friends pronounce ‘s’ more like ‘sh’ anyway…not sure if this is a widespread Tongan pronunciation or just dialectic.
In the film and also from people I know in real life, the name is pronounced See-oh-nay not See-oh-nee.
kassi is a very popular name in new zealand