Baby Name: Eliska

Last year, the central European country of the Czech Republic welcomed about 84,000 babies.

What were the most popular names among these babies? Eliška (for the 13th year in a row) and Jakub (for the 14th year in a row).

Here are Czechia’s top 50 girl names and top 50 boy names of 2024:

Girl names

1. Eliška
2. Viktorie
3. Sofie
4. Anna
5. Natálie
6. Amálie
7. Ema
8. Tereza
9. Laura
10. Adéla
11. Julie
12. Rozálie
13. Nela
14. Mia
15. Emma
16. Karolína
17. Barbora
18. Sára
19. Stella
20. Anežka – the Czech form of Agnes.
21. Veronika
22. Marie
23. Kristýna
24. Meda
25. Valerie
26. Ella
27. Klára
28. Jasmína
29. Štepánka
30. Josefína
31. Lucie
32. Aneta
33. Nina
34. Magdaléna
35. Zuzana (3-way tie)
36. Ester (3-way tie)
37. Beáta (3-way tie)
38. Alžbeta (tie) – the Slovak form of Elizabeth.
39. Elena (tie)
40. Rozárie – the Czech form of Rosaria.
41. Katerina
42. Sofia
43. Leontýna
44. Liliana
45. Gabriela
46. Emily
47. Amélie
48. Adriana (3-way tie)
49. Michaela (3-way tie)
50. Stela (3-way tie)

Boy names

1. Jakub
2. Matyáš
3. Jan
4. Adam
5. Matej
6. David
7. Vojtech
8. Filip
9. Dominik
10. Tomáš
11. Daniel
12. Tobiáš
13. Oliver
14. Štepán
15. Antonín
16. Sebastian
17. Lukáš
18. Martin
19. Ondrej
20. Mikuláš
21. Šimon (tie)
22. Marek (tie)
23. Samuel
24. Jonáš
25. Václav
26. Petr (tie)
27. Teodor (tie)
28. Patrik
29. Jirí – the Czech form of George.
30. Tadeáš
31. Kryštof
32. Michal
33. Viktor
34. Vilém – the Czech form of William.
35. Jáchym
36. Eliáš
37. Josef
38. Richard
39. Eduard
40. František
41. Albert
42. Tobias
43. Theodor
44. Alex
45. Pavel
46. Kristián (tie)
47. Damián (tie)
48. Vincent
49. Jindrich – the Czech form of Heinrich.
50. Michael

The girls’ top 100 included Markéta (57th), Klaudie (68th), Nella (76th), and Bára (97th).

The boys’ top 100 included Vít (55th), Robin (60th), Hynek (66th), and Kevin (81st).

Speaking of Kevin…Czech journalist Michal Kašpárek (who helped build an app based on Czechia’s baby name data) mentioned Kevin and several other non-Czech names during an interview with Radio Prague International last year. Some quotes:

• Amélie: “Before the movie Amélie came out in 2001 about one girl a year in the Czech Republic was named Amélie. The year after there [were] 13, out of nowhere, and then the number doubled each year until reaching today’s 180 or so Amélies every year.”
• Kevin: “Kevin became really popular after Home Alone came out, which was in the ’90s, when American names in general got more popular in the Czech Republic.”
• Bob: “[O]ur data also shows that the first Bobs were showing up in the 1960s, possibly due to Bob Dylan.”
• Amy: “There was also a big increase in the name Amy around that time that Amy Winehouse hit it big. That was a trend that didn’t stop after she passed away. Amy is still a really common name, and it hadn’t been before.”

I didn’t post about Czechia’s top baby names of 2023, but here are Czechia’s 2016 rankings.

P.S. Several Czech letters, such as R-with-caron and E-with-caron, don’t render properly on my site. So please imagine that they exist in several of the names above: the girl names Alžbeta, Katerina, and Štepánka, and the boy names Jindrich, Jirí, Matej, Ondrej, Štepán, and Vojtech.

Sources: Detským jménum loni opet kralovali Jakub a Eliška – Ceský statistický úrad, Eliška and Jakub remain most popular baby names in Czechia – Radio Prague International, Jakub, Eliška… Kevin: App spotlights first names in Czechia – Radio Prague International, Behind the Name

Image: Adapted from Flag of the Czech Republic (public domain)