The National Statistics Office of Malta, a tiny island nation in the Mediterranean Sea, compiles baby name rankings by lumping variant spellings of names (like Matthew, Matteo and Matthias) together into a single entry.
The most popular baby names in Malta last year were:
Girl Names
- Maria/Mariah (73 babies)
- Maya (53)
- Amy (43)
- Martina & Emma (tie; 40 each)
- Shania (36)
- Ylenia & Michela/Michaela & Sarah (tie; 35 each)
- Elisa/Eliza (33)
- Julia (32)
- Jasmin (30)
- Hailey (72)
- Nicole (26)
- Francesca (25)
- Catherine/Katarina/Kate (23)
- Amber & Hannah (tie; 19 each)
- Emily & Kelsey (tie; 18 each)
- Thea (16)
- Kaylie & Lara (tie; 15 each)
- Matthea (14)
- Mireille & Naomi (tie; 13 each)
- Aaliyah (12)
Boy Names
- Luke/Luca (79 babies)
- Matthew/Matteo/Matthias (78)
- Jake (67)
- Andre & Isaac & Michael/Michele (tie; 49 each)
- Nicholas (46)
- Aidan (42)
- Kieran (41)
- Daniel (40)
- Kyle (37)
- Nathan/Nathaniel (31)
- Gabriel (30)
- Christian & Julian & Liam (tie; 27 each)
- Alexander (26)
- Zachery (23)
- Thomas (22)
- James (21)
- Benjamin (18)
- Tristan (17)
- Jaydon & Kurt & Leon & Sven (tie; 16 each)
- Denzel & John Paul (tie; 15 each)
There were 1,846 girls and 2,039 boys born in Malta in 2006. (The country only has 402,000 inhabitants total.) Based on the numbers above, 41% of those girls and 46% of those boys were given a top-20 name.
Image: Adapted from Flag of Malta (public domain)