New Zealand’s top baby names of 2013 were announced last week.
According to NZ’s Department of Internal Affairs, the country’s most popular names of 2013 were Charlotte and Oliver.
Here are the top 25 girl names and top 25 boy names of 2013:
Girl Names
- Charlotte
- Emily
- Ruby
- Sophie
- Olivia
- Isla
- Amelia
- Ava
- Isabella
- Ella
- Chloe
- Grace
- Mia
- Lily
- Emma
- Sophia
- Lucy
- Mila
- Harper
- Zoe
- Georgia
- Paige
- Hannah
- Aria
- Jessica
Boy Names
- Oliver
- Jack
- James
- William
- Mason
- Liam
- Samuel
- Lucas
- Noah
- Thomas
- Hunter
- Ethan
- Jacob
- Benjamin
- Daniel
- Max
- Joshua
- Ryan
- Cooper
- Blake
- Lachlan
- Charlie
- Levi
- Leo
- Elijah
Girl names on the rise include Isla, Mila, Aria, Eden (30th), Willow (33rd) and Pippa (44th).
Boy names on the rise include Hunter and Elijah.
Another boy name — Braxton — debuted at #28 on the NZ top 100 in 2012 and was still going strong in 2013 at 29th. The explanation for Braxton’s sudden popularity could be the Australian soap opera Home and Away, which is popular in NZ. In 2011, the show introduced a trio of brothers named Darryl “Brax” Braxton, Heath Braxton and Casey Braxton. The eldest, Brax, seems to have emerged as the favorite Braxton brother.
Sources: The baby names NZ loves, Most Popular Male and Female First Names
Image: Adapted from Flag of New Zealand (public domain)
One of the things that’s most fascinating to me about the “popular baby names in xyz” posts is how much alike they all are! Who would have guessed that the most popular twenty names in New Zealand, Scotland, and Arizona would be more or less the same.
Even where the names differ, I bet they’re not far off. For example, Liam was not in Scotland’s top twenty list but does appear in the other two; I’ll bet that Liam is in Scotland’s top thirty, or that it has appeared in the top twenty within the last few years, or that it will appear in the top twenty in the next few years. I’ll bet the same thing about the name Jack in Arizona.
Names like Sophie and Mason and Olivia and Noah are crazy popular all over the English-speaking world. I wonder if this homogenization was true thirty years ago, too…. or if it’s just come about because of globalization. It would also be interesting to figure out which nations are the trend-setters…which nations lag behind by a couple of years on the latest global name trends.
Thanks for collecting and posting these lists all in one blog!
What is really surprising that there is not even a single native Maori name in the TOP-100. This make New Zealand very different from Hawaii or Ireland where native names regularly occur in the TOP lists.
@Erin – You bring up some really interesting questions!
I too would like to know if the degree of similarity between lists in English-speaking nations has changed over time (increased?), and if there’s a “trendsetter” nation as far as global name trends go (my guess would be the U.S., mainly b/c of Hollywood, but who knows).
I’m going to look into it — I’m bookmarking your comment as a reminder. Hopefully there’s enough historical baby name data out there from the various English-speaking countries to get some answers.
@elbowin –
Good point. I don’t see any Maori names there either. That’s really curious.Spoke too soon! I do see a few on the girls’ list, now that I’m paying attention. :)
Aria and Maia are both Maori names (along with being names in other languages) and they’re ranked 24th and 28th respectively.
And on other recent NZ lists (2004-2012) I see Anahera, Anika, Ariana and Manaia.
Ah, I didn’t recognize Aria and Maia as Maori, they are too familiar to me … the same holds for Ariana and Anika.
In the long lists, I found the popularity of Fletcher remarkable. Do the Kiwis have a special relationship to the Bounty mutineers?
Hm…looks like Fletcher entered the top 100 in 2010 at 89th, stayed at about that level for two more years, then popped up to 68th place in 2013.
I wonder if someone named Fletcher (either first or last name) hasn’t been making headlines down there recently?
Claudene Christian, a descendant of Fletcher Christian, died when the hurrican Sandy sank a replica of the Bounty. But is this enough to trigger a spike for Fletcher in New Zealand? And why was Fletcher rising the two years before that event?