Popular baby names in Sweden, 2010

Flag of Sweden
Flag of Sweden

Sweden’s top baby names have been released. The winners are Oscar and Maja (which is pronounced like Maia/Maya).

Here are the top ten boy names:

  1. Oscar (1,108 baby boys) – nearly 1.9% of all baby boys
  2. William (1,032)
  3. Lucas (1,026) – former #1
  4. Elias (888)
  5. Alexander (887)
  6. Hugo (873)
  7. Oliver (810)
  8. Theo (804) – new to the top 10
  9. Liam (782) – new to the top 10
  10. Leo (764) – new to the top 10

The three names that dropped out of the boys’ top ten were Erik, Victor, and Axel.

Newbies to the top 100 were Frank, Ebbe, Elvin, Julian and Ivar. Drop-outs were Dante, Mattias, Jesper, Dennis and Ruben.

The boy names that made the biggest jumps from 2009 to 2010 were Frank, Elvin and Milo. Those suffering the biggest drops were Carl, Marcus and Jonathan.

And here are the top ten girl names:

  1. Maja (895 baby girls) – 1.6% of all baby girls
  2. Alice (867) – former #1
  3. Julia (823)
  4. Linnéa (750)
  5. Wilma (742)
  6. Ella (737)
  7. Elsa (724)
  8. Emma (722)
  9. Alva (711)
  10. Olivia (703) – new to the top 10

The one name that dropped out of the girls’ top ten was Ebba.

Newbies to the top 100 were Tove, Minna, Majken, Annie, Juni, Hedvig and Novalie. Drop-outs were Malva, Victoria, Fanny, Alexandra, Rut, Miranda and Johanna.

The girl names that made the biggest jumps from 2009 to 2010 were Tove, Minna and Novalie. Those suffering the biggest drops were Kajsa, Emelie and Cornelia.

Source: Oscar and Maja most popular names in 2010 (StatisticsSweden press release)

Image: Adapted from Flag of Sweden (public domain)

2 thoughts on “Popular baby names in Sweden, 2010

  1. Nancy, I love these baby name popularity stats from around the world and appreciate your gathering and reporting them.

    I think all of Sweden’s top 10 boys’ names would work in the US, but I don’t see Oscar (too strongly associated with “the Grouch”) ever making it into our top 10, let alone #1. Wilma and Alva from the girls’ top 10 probably don’t have a big future here. My husband had an aunt named Wilma, who answered only to “Billie”, and really disliked the name Wilma. She was born in the 1920s; Alva seems to fit with that time frame too. I have a niece named Maija (pronounced like Maya) and have thought that spelling must be Scandinavian of some sort. Interesting to see the similar Ella, Elsa and Emma in a row at 6th, 7th, 8th places and that our very popular Olivia is just becoming now becoming popular in Sweden.

  2. I’m glad you like these posts! If you want to see even more popular names from around the world, check out Wikipedia’s list of most popular given names.

    I wonder about Wilma. Only a few dozen babies get the name every year nowadays, but I think the Flintstones association is fading, and shows like Mad Men are getting parents to take a closer look at names that were popular mid-century. So I wouldn’t be too shocked if more parents started using Wilma as an alternative to, say, Emma or Willow.

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