Ida and Kristian return to top of "they named the baby" list

Ida and Kristian/Christian were the most popular names last year, recapturing the position they held in 1990. The stellar performers of the year were Emma, which soared 27 places to number 11, and Sander, which shot up 22 places to fifth place. The first names statistics are otherwise marked by stability, indicating that parents have become better at using a wide variety of names.

Twenty years have passed since Kristian/Christian first topped the list of boys' names. Initially, Christian was the preferred spelling but after 1990 Kristian took over the lead. Marcus, last year's "newcomer", maintained its second place position. Martin, which rocketed to the top of the list in 1992, remains buoyant in third place while Andreas, last year's winner, dropped to fourth place. In fifth place is this year's "comet", Sander.

The most popular girls' names of the year are all actually losing ground fast. The top three, Ida, Silja and Marthe/Marte, have all seen better days. In fourth place is Malin, up from eleventh place. Karoline maintains a solid fifth place, while Ingrid, 1997's name of the year, fell to sixth place.

Swedish climbers

The rapid rise of Sander and Emma has put them into a class of their own among the most popular names in recent years. Together with Malin, they are believed to be imports from Sweden, Norway's neighbour to the east. And it is difficult to say whether Emma's popularity is connected to the Spice Girls pop artist of the same name. Other names on the fast track are Tobias, Hedda, Emilie and Nora. The names that are fading the fastest include Andreas, Stian and Petter for boys and Ingrid, Cecilie and Camilla for girls.

Tables and seach for names

New Statistics
First name statistics, 1998.
The statistics are published annually in the Weekly Bulletin of Statistics. For more information contact: Joergen.Ouren@ssb.no, tel. +47 21 09 48 05. The statistics were compiled on the basis of 58,430 newborn name reports collected by registration offices in 1998.

Weekly Bulletin issue no. 4, 1999