In 2022, the Philippines welcomed 1,455,393 babies.
What were the most popular names among these babies? Althea and Nathaniel, according to the Philippine Statistics Authority.
Here are the country’s top 10 girl names and top 10 boy names of 2022:
Girl names
- Althea, 1,935 baby girls
- Angel, 1,388
- Samantha, 1,314
- Princess, 1,110
- Nathalie, 1,094
- Chloe, 1,056
- Sofia, 1,046
- Zia, 984
- Athena, 983
- Sophia, 973
Boy names
- Nathaniel, 1,956 baby boys
- Jacob, 1,781
- Ezekiel, 1,662
- Gabriel, 1,583
- Nathan, 1,557
- Ethan, 1,359
- Noah, 1,322
- Liam, 1,198
- James, 1,151
- Matthew, 1,138
In the girls’ top 10, Zia and Athena replaced Andrea and Angela.
In the boys’ top 10, Noah and Liam replaced Angelo and Zion.
And which baby names saw the biggest jumps in usage?
- Noah, which rose from 931 to 1,322 baby boys [2021 to 2022]
- Avianna Louise, which rose from 11 to 295 baby girls [2021 to 2022]
Avianna Louise’s extreme increase must be attributable to something, though I’m not sure what.
In lieu of that, here’s some fun data from a 2017 infographic (PDF) showing how beauty queens have influenced girl names in the Philippines over the years.
In 1974 and 1994 — the first two times that the Philippines hosted the Miss Universe pageant — babies were named after both the delegate from the Philippines and the delegate who won the pageant:
| Name | Delegate | Usage Increase (baby girls) |
| Guadalupe | Guadalupe Sanchez Miss Philippines 1974 | 46 to 87 [1973 to 1974] |
| Amparo | Amparo Muñoz (of Spain) Miss Universe 1974 | 127 to 689 [1973 to 1974] |
| Charlene | Charlene Gonzales Miss Philippines 1994 | 1,345 to 4,178 [1993 to 1994] |
| Sushmita | Sushmita Sen (of India) Miss Universe 1994 | 3 to 535 [1993 to 1994] |
And in 1969, 1973, and 2015, the delegate from the Philippines was the winner of the pageant:
| Name | Delegate | Usage increase (baby girls) |
| Gloria | Gloria Diaz Miss Universe 1969 | 3,100 to 3,413 [1968 to 1969] |
| Margarita or Margie (not specified) | Margarita “Margie” Moran Miss Universe 1973 | 1,706 to 2,351 [1972 to 1973] |
| Pia | Pia Wurtzbach Miss Universe 2015 | 621 to 925 [2015 to 2016] |
A fourth Filipina, Catriona Gray, won Miss Universe (and likewise influenced baby names) in 2018.
Sources: Most Common Baby Names of 2022 – Philippine Statistics Authority (PDF), Registered Live Births in the Philippines, 2022 – Philippine Statistics Authority
Image: Adapted from Flag of the Philippines (public domain)
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