Popular name trends differ from country to country, with many international similarities and differences. When you look at names for baby boys around the world, one interesting trend pops up: boys' names differ more from country to country than do international baby girl names. While female names like Emma, Olivia, and Anna are all the rage in many different cultures, there's less similarity when it comes to male names. It seems that parents are more apt to name their sons in ways that reflect tradition than they are when they name their daughters.
This does not mean there aren't cross-cultural trends in boys' names. Various forms of Alexander (Alejandro, Alexandr, Olexandr) are popular in many places. The same is true with Lucas (Luka, Lukas) and Daniel (Dan, Daniil). American baby boy name trends seem to have taken a life of their own: the "Aden" trend (Aiden, Caden, Jayden, etc.) hasn't made a huge splash elsewhere.
Here is a sampling of the top baby names for boys in countries throughout the world. Unless otherwise noted, the names listed are from 2006 data. Most, but not all, reflect the top five most popular names.
Australia-- Jack, Lachlan, Thomas, Ethan, William
Belarus-- Artem, Vladislav, Nikita, Aleksej, Ivan
Belgium-- Milan, Wout, Senne, Seppe, Thomas
Brazil (2005)-- Gabriel, Gustavo, Giulherme, Mateus, Vitor
Canada-- Ethan, Joshua, Matthew, Jacob, Nathan
Chile (2005)-- Benjamin, Mathias, Vincente, Martin, Sebastian
Croatia-- Luka, Ivan, Marko, Filip, Karlo
Czech Republic- Jan, Jakub, Tomáš, Adam, Ondrej
Estonia-- Markus, Rasmus, Kevin, Kaspar, Daniel
Finland-- Juhani, Johannes,.Mikael,.Matias.Olavi
France-- Enzo, Mathis, Lucas, Hugo, Mathéo
Germany-- Maximillian, Leon, Lukas, Fynn
Hungary (2005)-- Bence, Máté, Balázs,. Dávid, Dániel
Israel-- Uri, Ro’I, Amit, Yosef, Moshe
Japan (2005)-- Yuuki, Haruto, Souta, Yuuto, Haruki
Lithuania-- Lukas, Mantas, Tomas, Deividas, Rokas
Mexico-- Alejandro, Juan Carlos, Miguel Angel, Eduardo, Fernando
Norway-- Jonas, Mathia, Andreas, Elias, Sebastian
Netherlands (2005)-- Dan, Sem, Thomas, Tim, Lucas
Norway-- Markus, Mathias, Jonas, Kristian, Tobias
Phillipines (2005)-- Michael, Ronald, Ryan, Joseph, Joel
Poland-- Marcin, Adam, Marek, Piotr, Tomasz
Romania-- Alexandru, Radu, Vlad, Ion, Marin
Russia-- Alexandr, Andrey, Daniil, Dmitry, Ivan
Slovakia-- Peter, Jan, Michal, Jozef, Martin, Miro
Spain (2005)-- Alejandro, Daniel, Pablo, David, Javier
Sweden-- Lucas, Oscar, William, Elias, Filip
Tunisia-- Mehdi, Youssef, Aziz. Karim, Slim
Turkey-- Arda, Yusuf, Mehmet, Mustafa, Emirhan
Ukraine-- Olexandr, Vadim, Gleb, Taras, Maksim
United Kingdom-- Jack, Thomas, Joshua, Oliver, Harry
United States-- Aiden, Jacob, Ethan, Ryan, Matthew
If your country isn't on the list, email me with the Top 5 baby boy names in your country and I will be happy to include them!
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