According to data from Statistics Sweden, the most popular baby names in Sweden in 2015 were Elsa and William.
Here are Sweden’s top 10 girl names and top 10 boy names of 2015:
| Girl Names | Boy Names |
|---|---|
| 1. Elsa, 872 baby girls 2. Alice, 847 3. Maja, 674 4. Saga, 671 5. Ella, 627 6. Lilly, 613 7. Olivia, 583 8. Ebba, 576 9. Wilma, 757 10. Julia, 574 | 1. William, 977 baby boys 2. Lucas, 802 3. Liam, 752 4. Oscar, 737 5. Elias, 732 6. Hugo, 711 7. Oliver, 709 8. Charlie, 664 9. Axel, 627 10. Vincent, 602 |
In the boys’ top 10, Axel replaced Alexander.
In the girls’ top 10, Saga, Ella and Wilma replaced Agnes, Molly and Linnea.
The names in the top 100 that rose the fastest were:
- Lo, Saga, Hedvig, Julie, and Ronja for girls, and
- Kian, Henry, Love, Algot and Sam for boys.
The names in the top 100 that fell the fastest were:
- Hilda, Cornelia, Elvira, Felicia and Linn for girls, and
- Linus, Elvin, Rasmus, Felix and Jack for boys.
The sudden rise of Saga (from 21st to 4th) could be due to the popular Scandinavian TV show “The Bridge,” which features a character named Saga. But, as Maybe it is Daijiro notes, the show has been around since 2011. Saga’s usage stayed relatively flat until 2014.
Also in 2015, the Swedish Patent and Registration Office (PVR) received 1,942 applications for adult name changes — a new national record. Znövit (Snow White), Lejontass (Lion paw) and Grön (green) were three of the new names requested last year. Sweden may be strict about names for babies, but name changes for adults are approved around 99% of the time.
Sources: Name statistics – Statistics Sweden, Swedes rush to ditch classic Nordic names
Image: Adapted from Flag of Sweden (public domain)
I am a bit confused by this. I hear of a new and large middle eastern and north Aftican immigrant population in Sweden so expected to see that influence on this list. Perhaps those births are not registered with the Swedish officials?
What we have to keep in mind about this, Diana, is that the list that the Swedish statistics agency created merges various spellings together and show only the most popular variant in their list.
Mohamed (the most popular variant) was ranked 43rd in their list with 355 boys being given either this variant or other variants. However, my list was created from their ‘Create your own tables’ section, as I’ve mentioned, by separating the variant spellings and using that, Mohamed was only given to 111 baby boys last year, failing to make it to the unmerged top 100. The next variant, Mohammed, was given to 89 boys.
Love is quite interesting
@Skizzo, “Love” is a variant of Louis/Ludwig; it would be pronounced something like “Loo-veh” in Swedish —https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_(given_name)