Most popular Finnish names for girls and boys
These days, giving a Finnish name to your newborn girl or boy is an option as good as any. The days when kids could only be named after a saint are long gone. Of course when we talk about giving your babies Finnish names we could also propose to you names from any other country – but we are Big in Finland.
In this post we talk about the Finnish names that parents in Finland give their babies these days. We will only talk about the most popular Finnish names.
Hello, my name is… Source (CC: by-sa)
Table of Contents
Finnish names and surnames
Talking about the meaning of Finnish names is something we have yet to do on this English version of the blog. Another to-do is talking about why most of Finnish surnames end in -nen and where this comes from. In your country there probably is also a suffix is at the end of many surnames like “-mann” in German or “-ez” in Spanish.
Anyways, my favorite Finnish name is – and will always be – Mette Mannonen, like the Finnish weather anchorwoman. In Spanish it sounds funny because it sounds really close to the expression “meter mano”. What this expression means… I will better not reveal here.
The most popular Finnish names for girls and boys (or men and women)
The Civil Registry of Finland compiles, among many other things, the most popular names that Finnish parents give to their children. They keep an annual list here, and they divide the entries between names that parents who speak the Finnish language give their children and names that parents that speak Swedish give.
The last year available is 2013 (you can check other years on the link above) and the names that Finnish speaking parents give their children are:
Finnish names for boys:
- Juhani
- Johannes
- Olavi
- Mikael
- Onni
The Finnish name most used for boys on 2013: Juhani. Source (CC: by-sa).
Finnish names for girls:
- Maria
- Sofia
- Emilia
- Olivia
- Aino
Some finnish girls.
If you prefer, instead of the year-by-year data (the first time I checked this list was in 2012 and there have been quite a lot of changes to the top 5) there is a second website from the government that lists the most popular names by decade and in total. This list makes no disctintion between languages.
The all-time top 3 male Finnish names for boys since the registry exists are Juhani, Johannes and Olavi. The most popular female names are Maria, Helena and Johanna.
Which Finnish name is your favorite?
Topics: Finnish language, Finnish people |
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This is really helpful for me as I am writing a series of short stories based in Porvoo. Since I am of an older generation most of my local friends are called “Matti’ or ‘Erja’ 🙂 and in Emsalo where I am based for a lot of the year most names are Swedish. I am delighted that Finnish names are no longer restricted to a list of saints and that Finns havent fallen into the English fashion of naming their offspring after soap stars.
I think Finnish names are lovely.
not really.. My name is Jusa, It sounds like usa and its dumb o_o
I don’t think it is dumb 🙂