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Germany: Noah and Sophia the most popular 2023 baby names

May 7, 2024

Noah has been the most popular boy's name in Germany for five years in a row now. Sophia (or Sofia) narrowly dethroned Emilia atop the girls' list.

https://p.dw.com/p/4fZGe
Fridge magnets, pictured close up, spelling out the names "Noah" and "Sophia." Symoblic undated image.
Noah's almost a shoo-in at the top of the boys' rankings these days, but Sophia is a new chart topperImage: Hendrik Schmidt/dpa/picture alliance

The list of the top ten names given to baby girls and boys in Germany in 2023 remained largely the same as in the past few years, the Society for German Language said on Tuesday.

Sophia overtook Emilia as the most popular girls' name but by a tiny margin, while Noah retained its yearslong top position, successfully warding off a challenge from Matheo in a number of variants.

Both Sophia and Noah were given as names to just over one in a 100 babies of the respective gender.

For girls and boys, the 3rd to the 9th place remained very stable: Emma, Mia, Hannah, Mila, Lina, Ella and Klara/Clara for female babies, Leon, Paul, Emil, Luca, Henry, Elias and Lukas for male ones.

However, there were two completely new names in the list of the top ten: Lia(h) for girls (up to 10th place from 14th place) and Liam for boys (up to 10th place from 15th place).

Ben and Finn were both forced out of the top ten for boys, though the latter name was up at 4th place in 2022.

Short names in fashion

The experts noted that there is a current trend to short or even very short names, with brighter vowels such as A, E and I much in vogue.

There was some contrast between the different regions of Germany in the way children were named.

In the north, the top ten names for girls included Ida and Frieda, while in the south, Marie, Anna and Leonie were high on the list. In Germany's former communist eastern states, Mathilda, Charlotte and Frieda were highly popular.  

For boys, the north saw names like Theo, Mohammed and Fiete in the top ten, the south favored Lukas, Felix and Jakob, the east Oskar, Finn, Theo and Karl and the west, Felix.

Almost 70,000 different names were registered at the 750 participating registry offices.

The Association for German Language (GfdS), based in the western city of Wiesbaden, has been publishing lists of the most popular babies' names since 1977. 

tj/wmr (KNA, epd)

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