Baby Name: Josefa

According to data from Chile’s Servicio de Registro Civil e Identificación, the most popular baby names in the country last year were Sofia and Mateo.

Here are Chile’s top 10 girl names and top 10 boy names of 2021:

Girl Names

1. Sofía, 2,401 baby girls
2. Emma, 2,352
3. Isabella, 2,156
4. Emilia, 2,047
5. Mia, 1,923
6. Agustina, 1,820
7. Julieta, 1,723
8. Trinidad, 1,722
9. Isidora, 1,698
10. Josefa, 1,687

Boy Names

1. Mateo, 3,272 baby boys
2. Lucás, 2,057
3. Agustín, 2,055
4. Benjamín, 2,030
5. Santiago, 1,809
6. Gaspar, 1,759
7. Tomás, 1,645
8. Maximiliano, 1,533
9. Vicente, 1,485
10. Matías, 1,405

In the girls’ top 10, Julieta replaced Florencia.

In the boys’ top 10, Maximiliano replaced Joaquín.

Also popular is the interesting name Facundo, which has ranked inside the top 20 for the last few years.

The indigenous Mapuche people make up about 12% of the Chilean population, so Chile’s rankings included a number of Mapuche names, such as…

I also noticed a lot of names with similar elements (mainly toward the bottom of the rankings). Some of the repeated elements that caught my attention were…

• Wid-
  • e.g., Widencia (f), Widmayer (m), Widnaido (m), Widnalem (f), Widnelson (m)
• Wil-
  • Wilbenson (m), Wilchinia (f), Wilciano (m), Wilferman (m), Wilyana (f)
• Wood-
  • Woodentz (m), Woodgina (f), Woodison (m), Woodjeny (f), Woodmerry (m)
• -(s)ley
  • Dawensley (m), Frantzley (m), Jamesley (m), Phidensley (m), Roodensley (m)
• -sky
  • Bervensky (m), Ferdensky (m), Lorvensky (m), Marvensky (m), Rodlensky (m)
• -aïca/aica
  • Anaica (f), Ednaica (f), Janaïca (f), Onaïca (f), Phidnaïca (f), Schaïca (f)

Plus there were plenty of combinations thereof, like Widensley (m), Wildanaïka (f), and Woodjonsky (m).

Finally, here are some of the rare baby names that were bestowed just once in Chile last year:

Kontiki is one of the names of the Inca creator deity Viracocha. (In the 1940s, it was used as the name of the Kon-Tiki expedition across the Pacific.)

Malkocoglu was likely picked up from a character in the Turkish TV series Muhtesem Yuzyil, which has become particularly popular in Chile (as El Sultán).

Sources:

• Chile’s Mapuche indigenous group fights for rights (BBC)
• La nueva oleada turca: Cinco teleseries se sumarán a la pantalla local
• Mapuche Names – Behind the Name
• Mapudungun nouns – Wiktionary
• Portal de Datos del Servicio de Registro Civil e Identificación
• Rozzi, Ricardo. Multi-Ethnic Bird Guide of the Sub-Antarctic Forests of South America. Chile: University of Magallanes Press, 2010.

Image: Adapted from Flag of Chile (public domain)