Norway’s classic old name of “Nora” has once again topped the list of most popular names for baby girls born last year. “Noah” emerged as the most popular name chosen by parents for baby boys, surprising researchers at state statistics bureau SSB.
“The big surprise this year is the big differences in name preferences among boys,” researcher Anders Sønstebø. Last year’s top choice, Jakob, dove from first to ninth place, marking what Sønstebø called a “quite large decline from an historic perspective.”
None of the top-10 names for girls and boys include any of the uniquely Norwegian letters æ, ø or å either. That may out of consideration for the electronic age, when it can be challenging to use or translate such letters in everything from email addresses to airline reservations.
The most popular names for girls were Nora, Emma, Sophia, Olivia, Ella, Maya, Leah, Frida and Ingrid. The names most chosen for boys were Noah, Oskar, Oliver, Lukas, Isak, Aksel, Filip, Jakob and William, some of them with variations of spelling.
newsinenglish.no staff
