Mateo and Martín for boys and Lucía and Sofía for girls are the most repeated names among newborns in most communities, although parents from autonomous communities with languages other than Spanish tend to choose different names, such as Marc, Markel , Ane or Amira.
According to data published this week by the National Institute of Statistics (INE), Mateo is the most chosen male name in Aragon, Asturias, the Canary Islands, Castilla-La Mancha, the Valencian Community, Galicia and Madrid; the second in Cantabria and Castilla y León and the third in La Rioja.
For its part, Lucía is the most common for babies in Aragón, Cantabria, Castilla y León, Castilla-La Mancha, Extremadura, Madrid and Navarra; the second in Andalusia and Murcia; the third in the Balearic Islands, the Valencian Community, La Rioja and Melilla; the fourth in Catalonia and the fifth in the Canary Islands.
Lucía is also the most chosen for girls in Spain as a whole, ahead of Sofía, Martina, María and Julia, while Mateo is the second in the whole country, behind Hugo and followed by Martín, Lucas and Leo.
Martín is the first in Cantabria, Castilla y León and La Rioja; Manuel in Andalusia and Extremadura and Hugo in Murcia; the same as Sofía in Asturias, the Canary Islands, the Valencian Community, Galicia and La Rioja and María in Andalusia and Murcia.
In several of the communities where a co-official language is spoken or Spanish is not the mother tongue of many of the inhabitants, the most used names change.
Thus, Marc is the most used male name in the Balearic Islands and Catalonia; Julen in Navarre; Markel in the Basque Country; Amir in Ceuta and Mohamed in Melilla; while Martina is the most common girl’s name in the Balearic Islands, Julia in Catalonia, Ane in the Basque Country and Amira in Ceuta and Melilla.
In the case of Catalonia, the five most used boy names are Marc, Jan, Nil, Pol and Leo; in Ceuta they are Amir, Mohamed, Akram, Haron and Rayan and in Melilla Mohamed, Amir, Maher, Rayan and Adam.
The INE statistics reflect the changes registered in Spain also when it comes to choosing the name of the children. In the last two decades, of the top five in each community, as in the country as a whole, a few names have been disappearing.
None of the five most common boy names 20 years ago, in 2002, in the country as a whole is already in that classification: Alejandro has gone from first to eleventh, Pablo from second to thirteenth, Daniel from third to tenth, David from fourth to nineteenth and Adrián from fifth to fifteenth.
On the contrary, the five that now appear as the five favorites were 20 years ago very far from being: Hugo was in 50th place, Martín 74th, Lucas 69th and Mateo and Leo did not even appear among the top 100.
The change in preferences has been less in female names: of the five favorites 20 years ago, María has only dropped from first place to fourth and Lucía, now first, was already second, and Paula has dropped from third to sixth, although Laura has fallen from fourth to forty-third and Marta from fifth to thirty-seventh.
The same happens in bilingual communities, such as Catalonia, where Marc has been at the top for two decades, but of the following only Pol appeared in the top 10 and Jan, Nil and Leo did not appear on the list; or the Basque Country, where Markel strongly succeeded Iker at the head of the preferences.
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