Swiss parents spring no surprises at the baptismal font
One of the more enjoyable tasks facing expectant parents is thinking up names for their children. But many Swiss parents, it seems, prefer to let fashion dictate their choice. For several years running the same names have topped the list of favourites.
The latest statistics from federal statistics office show that last year, 78,408 babies were born in Switzerland – 38,152 girls and 40,256 boys.
New parents in German-speaking Switzerland decided to stick with the perennial favourite names for their children: Laura and Luca.
A total of 524 baby girls were named Laura and 497 boys Luca, making them the most popular names in the region. Michelle, Sarah, Céline, Jan and Marco were also very popular.
The story was the same in French-speaking Switzerland, where Léa and David topped the list yet again. Last year, 169 girls were named Léa and 156 boys were named David, making them the most popular names in the region.
Léa has been the number one name for girls among the French-speaking Swiss since 1998. For boys, David has been at the top of the list for the past six years, except in 1998, when Nicholas took first place.
The names Laura, Sarah, Nicholas, Alexandre and Luca were also extremely popular among French-speaking parents.
According to the report, the boys’ name Maxime fell from third place in 1998 to tenth place in 1999.
In southern Switzerland, Italian-speaking parents opted for Alessandro and Alessia while Romansch-speaking parents chose Marco and Selina.
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