Popular baby names in Estonia, 2013

Flag of Estonia
Flag of Estonia

Estonia’s top baby names of 2013 were published in the newspaper Postimees at the end of 2012.

The paper didn’t explicitly mention the source of the information (the Ministry of the Interior?) but reported that the country’s most popular names from January to November, 2013, were Maria and Rasmus.

Here are Estonia’s projected top 15 girl names and top 15 boy names of 2013:

Girl Names

  1. Maria*
  2. Sofia
  3. Laura
  4. Anna*
  5. Mia/Miia
  6. Milana
  7. Lisandra
  8. Mirtel
  9. Viktoria
  10. Liisa
  11. Arina
  12. Darja
  13. Aleksandra
  14. Sandra
  15. Adeele/Adele

Boy Names

  1. Rasmus
  2. Artjom*
  3. Martin
  4. Robin
  5. Oliver
  6. Markus
  7. Nikita*
  8. Romet
  9. Sebastian
  10. Sander
  11. Kristofer
  12. Robert
  13. Oskar
  14. Maksim
  15. Daniel

(The names with asterisks (*) are particularly popular among Russian-speakers in Estonia.)

Names that increased in popularity last year include Rasmus, Gregor and Mia.

Kevin, Kristjan and Kristina, on the other hand, decreased in popularity “significantly.”

Mirtel, 8th on the girls’ list, was rare until Estonian actress Mirtel Pohla came along.

The name Lenna was similarly uncommon until Estonian singer Lenna Kuurmaa hit the scene, and now Lenna is “quite popular,” though not in the top 15.

Robin, 4th on the boys’ list, is a curious one. It’s not an Estonian name, but simply the English male name Robin. And yet it’s trending in Estonia right now. (The last time Robin was trendy in the U.S. was a half century ago, and most of those baby Robins were female.) Could the inspiration be “Blurred Lines” singer Robin Thicke? I know it’s a long shot, but that’s all I can think of.

Postimees also published the following list of Estonia’s most popular baby names from 1992 to 2004. (They did say the Ministry of the Interior was the source for this one.)

Top Girl Names, 1992–2004Top Boy Names, 1992–2004
1. Anna
2. Laura
3. Kristina
4. Maria
5. Diana
6. Sandra
7. Anastassia
8. Jekaterina
9. Karina
10. Alina
11. Kristiina
12. Aleksandra
13. Viktoria
14. Darja
15. Liis
16. Anastasia
17. Kätlin
18. Julia
19. Valeria
1. Martin
2. Sander
3. Aleksandr
4. Kristjan
5. Kevin
6. Nikita
7. Markus
8. Artur
9. Maksim
10. Karl
11. Dmitri
12. Daniil
13. Siim
14. Rasmus
15. Aleksei
16. Andrei
17. Artjom
18. Mihkel
19. Ilja

I’m guessing 2004 was picked as an endpoint because Estonia enacted a name law in early 2005 that regulates baby name orthography (to start weeding out foreign letters such as x, y and c). The full list has 677 names; at the bottom are names like Sirje, Raina, Raneli and Patricia.

Sources: And This Year’s Most Popular Baby Names Are…, These are the days of Rasmus, Artjom, Maria and Sofia

Image: Adapted from Flag of Estonia (public domain)

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