Popular baby names in Estonia, 2013

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, 1992–2004	Top 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)