Norwegian parents were most likely to name their baby girls “Emma” and their baby boys “Lucas” last year, much like they did in 2010. Now they’re using a more international spelling with “c” instead of “Lukas,” though, a trend that started in 2014.
State statistics bureau SSB (Statistics Norway) follows baby-naming every year, and this year some researchers were adding an extra flair. Ivar Utne at the University of Bergen follows naming trends on a regional basis and could tell newspaper Aftenposten on Monday that Oslo isn’t setting the naming trends any longer. “Mohammad” topped the list for boys in Oslo and “Alma” for girls last year, but neither name was most popular anywhere else in the country.
“Emma,” however, was most popular in Finnmark, Troms, Sogn og Fjordane, Hordaland, Vest-Agder, Buskerud, Vestfold, Akershus and Østfold. “Lucas” didn’t grab quite such geographic reach, but topped lists in Aust-Agder, Oppland and Telemark. The sheer numbers of babies named “Emma” and “Lucas” made them most popular on a nationwide basis.
Other popular names for boys were” Olive”r (roughly prounounced “Oh-lee-vair” in Norwegian), “Oskar,” “Mathias” (“Ma-tee-ahs”) and “Henrik,” while “Nora” still topped lists for girls in Nordland, Trøndelag and Rogaland.
newsininenglish.no staff
