Commenter skizzo recently asked me to check on Italy’s 2014 baby name rankings. They aren’t out yet, but the 2013 list is, and since I’ve never posted a popularity list for Italy before, I thought I’d go ahead and post the older list while we wait for the newer one.
According to data from Istituto nazionale di statistica (Istat), the most popular baby names in Italy in 2013 were Sofia and Francesco.
Here are Italy’s top 10 girl names and top 10 boy names of 2013:
Girl Names
- Sofia
- Giulia
- Aurora
- Emma
- Giorgia
- Martina
- Chiara
- Sara
- Alice
- Gaia
Boy Names
- Francesco
- Alessandro
- Andrea
- Lorenzo
- Mattia
- Matteo
- Gabriele
- Leonardo
- Riccardo
- Tommaso
Check out Francesco’s rise in usage from 2012 to 2013, no doubt due to the election of Pope Francis in March of 2013:
Funny thing is, Francesco has long been Italy’s most popular boy name, so in 2013 it just become more dominantly popular.
And what’s the difference between Mattia and Matteo? Not much — they’re just the Italian forms of Matthias and Matthew, which are derived from the same Hebrew root name.
For earlier sets of data from Italy, click the link below. Istat currently offers top 50 lists going back to 1999.
Source: How many babies are named…? – Istat
Image: Adapted from Flag of Italy (public domain). Graph from Istat.
