Politics

Miguel and Helena are the most registered names in Brazil in 2021; see list

December 17, 2021
7:30 AM

For the second consecutive year, Miguel and Helena were the most common names for babies in Brazil in 2021. While the preferred name for boys had 28,301 records, the most chosen one for girls was present in 21,890 birth certificates.

The data were released by the National Association of Natural Persons Registrars (Arpen-Brasil), which counted all the more than 2 million registrations made this year in 7,658 Civil Registry Offices throughout the country. The records are part of the Civil Registry Transparency Portal, which is managed by Arpen.

Although the leadership has not changed in two years, other names are conquering more and more moms and dads. This is the case of Gael, who in 2019 was not even on the list of the 50 most chosen names, but in 2020 he already occupied the 10th position in the list of records and, this year, he gained even more positions and jumped to the third place among the favorites for the newborns.

In the list of boys, other names are starting to become a trend: Noah, Ravi, Isaac and Anthony appeared for the first time in the list of the 50 most registered.

Among the girls, Eloa and Liz debuted on this year’s list. At the same time, Sophia, Maite and Antonella also started to appear for the first time among the most chosen national names in the registry offices.

The survey showed a tendency to choose simple, short and biblical names. “Perhaps because of the situation we’ve been living in over the last two years, the choice of biblical names has increased, with people’s search for hope and comfort in the face of adversity”, assesses Gustavo Renato Fiscarelli, president of Arpen-Brasil.