The most popular names

Eva has been one of the most popular baby girl names in recent years, and it topped the list for baby girls born last year, reports Statistics Faroe Islands.

Eva also topped the list in 2018, 2017, 2015, 2014 and 2011. Since 2010, 67 girls have been named Eva. Six girls were named Eva in 2022 and four were named Bára, Bjarta, Elvira, Lilja and Tóra.

Elvira is the highest climber on the list, going up from a 269th place to a joint second. The number of Elviras in the Faroes doubled from 2021 to 2022.

Other popular baby girl names last year were Heidi, Bjørg and Isabella.

Boys’ names

Five boys born in 2022 were named Baldur, Brandur and Kristian.

Brandur and Kristian have been popular baby boy names in recent years.

Baldur is a less common name. Only once before have five boys in the same year been named Baldur. This was in 2019, when Baldur was third on the list of popular baby boy names.

Other popular boy’s names were Mattias, Nóa and Tóki.

Further down the list we find Jónas. Three boys born in 2022 were named Jónas, compared to 11 in the previous year. With a total of 155 boys being named Jónas this century, this has been the most popular baby boy name in the 2010s and the 2020s.

Names in general

For the total Faroese population, Maria and Jákup have been the most common names for many years.

The most popular names of women residing in the Faroes on 1 January 2023 were Maria, Anna and Annika, followed by Katrin, Beinta, Marjun and Rannvá.

Jákup and Jógvan have been topping the list for popular men’s names for decades.

Other names such as Rúni, Høgni Ólavur and Kári have also featured highly on the list for many years. The only recent top 10 change is that Jónas replaced Eyðun in 2021.

Statistics Faroe Islands will publish further details about names on its English-language news page today or tomorrow.

Read the Faroese version of this article here.

English version by prosa.fo.

More Faroese News in English.