How popular is the baby name Guzi in the United States right now? How popular was it historically? Use the popularity graph and data table below to find out! Plus, see all the blog posts that mention the name Guzi.

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Popularity of the baby name Guzi


Posts that mention the name Guzi

Malta to allow Maltese baby names

Flag of Malta
Flag of Malta

Yay for Malta!

Years ago, I mentioned that Malta was the only nation I knew of in which parents were not allowed to register baby names in the national language.

Why couldn’t they? Because Malta’s government IT systems could not handle Maltese font.

But “a collective overhaul across government IT systems [is now] being done to ensure Maltese orthography is accepted across the board,” and Malta will soon be allowing parents to officially bestow traditional Maltese names.

Maltese, a Semitic language that descended from Sicilian Arabic, has six letters that English doesn’t have. One of them, ie, is easy enough to replicate on a computer; the other five (below) are not.

Here’s how to pronounce them, roughly:

  • C-with-a-dot makes a ch-sound
  • G-with-a-dot makes a j-sound (without the dot, G makes a g-sound)
  • Gh-with-a-line is silent*
  • H-with-a-line makes an h-sound (without the line, H is silent)
  • Z-with-a-dot makes a z-sound (without the dot, Z makes a ts-sound)

Without these letters, a large number of traditional Maltese names are unable to be rendered properly.

(I would love to list some of those names, but, ironically, I can’t — my blogging software doesn’t handle special characters very well.)

Anyway…well done, Malta! I’m proud of you. :)

P.S. More on the silent letters: “Maltese orthography continues to reflect the presence of some letters that are no longer pronounced in order to indicate semantic provenance — a convenience that makes it possible, among other things, to look up words in the dictionary under the three-consonant root (as one does with Semitic languages).”

Update, 6/13/20: Here’s an image of a list of traditional Maltese names…

Maltese baby names

The list above includes Maltese names that are equivalent to: Angelo, Beatrice, Francis, Elizabeth, Jacob, James, George, Juliet, Justin, Joseph, John, Hilda, Lucia, Luigi, Theresa, and Vincent.

P.S. While gathering these names, I happened to find out that the surname Buttigieg — as in former presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg — is Maltese and means “poulterer.” Specifically, it comes from a pair of Sicilian Arabic words meaning “father, master, owner” and “fowl.”

Update, 1/2/21: “A baby boy called Ganni is the first child to be officially named using Maltese fonts after an IT system change that recognises letters in the national language” (Times of Malta, Dec. 23). Of course that uppercase G-with-a-dot won’t render correctly in this post, though, so here’s an image:

Maltese name Ganni

It’s the Maltese equivalent of John.

Sources:

Image: Adapted from Flag of Malta (public domain)

Popular baby names in Malta, 2014

Flag of Malta
Flag of Malta

According to data from Malta’s National Statistics Office, the most popular name-groups in Malta in 2014 were Elena/Elenia/Helena/Ella and Luke/Luca/Lucas.

Here are Malta’s top 10 girl and boy name-groups of 2014:

Girl Names

  1. Elena/Elenia/Helena/Ella, 97 baby girls
  2. Julia/Yulia/Julianne, 72
  3. Emma/Emmanuela/Ema, 70
  4. Eliza/Elisa/Elizabeth/Elise, 69
  5. Catherine/Katrina/Kate/Katya, 46
  6. Maya/Mia/Myah, 44
  7. Lea/Leah/Leia, 42
  8. Emilia/Emily/Emelie, 41
  9. Amy/Aimee, 39
  10. Maria/Marija/Mariah/Marie, 37 [tie]
    • Anna/Hannah/Ann, 37 [tie]

Boy Names

  1. Luke/Luca/Lucas, 98 baby boys
  2. Matthew/Matthias/Matteo, 97
  3. Jacob/Jake, 77
  4. Zachary/Zak/Zack, 59
  5. Michael/Miguel/Mikhail, 53
  6. Liam/William, 51 [tie]
    • John/Jean/Jonathan/Juan/Gan, 51 [tie]
  7. Benjamin/Ben, 51
  8. Kaiden/Kayden/Kai ,46 [tie]
    • Alexander/Alessandro/Alec, 46 [tie]
  9. Andrew/Andreas/Andre/Andy, 45
  10. Joseph/Beppe/Giuseppe/Josef, 40

Down in 15th place on the boys’ side is “Yannick/Yan” — both are versions of John, and yet they’re not part of the John group, which is tied for 6th.

Speaking of strange things…

Quote about Malta being unable to use Maltese fonts for birth registrations (Times of Malta)

(My blog also cannot handle Maltese fonts, or else I’d be able to write out that paragraph for you.)

I’ve seen governments (e.g., NWT, California) make excuses about not being able to render minority/ethnic names properly on birth certificates, but I’ve never heard of a country that couldn’t render names from its own national language.

Oh, Malta.

Here are the 2013, 2012, 2009, 2007, and 2006 rankings.

Sources: Naming Babies – National Statistics Office – Malta, Luke and Elena remain most popular names given to newborns, ‘Dotty’ system bars patriot baby names

Image: Adapted from Flag of Malta (public domain)