The year 2021 offers clear climbers and equally clear relegations for the most popular first names: The names Emilia and Matteo have made it to the top of the ranking of the name expert Knud Bielefeld.

"These are both names that are in first place for the first time," said Bielefeld to the German Press Agency in Ahrensburg (Schleswig-Holstein).

The hobby name researcher published his ranking on Thursday, the dpa has it.

Emilia has climbed slowly but steadily over the years.

“Matteo, on the other hand, went very steeply uphill.

It wasn't even Top Ten two years ago and is now number 1. That is very unusual. "

Emma and Mattis, Ella and Mats

Both names would fit in well with the German naming system, said Bielefeld, explaining their current popularity. “With Emilia in particular, you can think of a lot of similar names. Ella, Emma, ​​Emily. Matteo also has many similar names that we have known for a long time. Mattis, Matthias or Mats. The names are already very familiar, but they also have a little something new. ”The triumph of both names was foreseeable: As early as 2020, Bielefeld had assumed that they would quickly make it to the top of the ranking.

Bielefeld could not explain why Matteo in particular has shot up so steeply in the statistics.

“I did not find an event.

I also don't know of any particular name model in radio, television, media or sports. ”It is not uncommon for parents to be inspired by their favorite films, series or athletes when choosing a name for their offspring.

There were no surprises in the further course of the hit list either.

With the girls, the names Hannah, Mia, Emma and Sophia follow Emilia.

Among the boys, along with Matteo, the names Noah, Leon, Finn and Elias are among the top 5. Bielefeld: "These are all the names that have been in the top 10 for a long time."

Further down the list, on the other hand, there are still exciting aspects.

One of them is even related to Corona.

"The name Luca is interesting," says Bielefeld.

The question was whether parents no longer call their children that because of the Luca app, which can currently be found on almost every smartphone due to corona.

“But that didn't happen.

The name has become even more popular this year. "

This year it landed in eighth place, in previous years always on 12 or 13. In the summer, a computer animation film from Pixar Studios called "Luca" came out on the streaming service Disney +.

Greta unpopular as a name

On the other hand, the clear relegation is still the name Greta, which the Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg also bears.

“In the year before last, it was still in 30th place and the years before that too roughly.

It fell to 130th last year and this year it went even further downhill.

Greta is only in 200th place. "

In contrast, the basic trends with regard to the choice of names of parents in the regions of Germany have remained the same.

“In southern Germany, the names that are actually out of fashion are more common.” The reason for this is that in the south names are more often passed on from generation to generation.

Examples are Annika, Nina, Franziska, Sebastian, Matthias and Dominik.

In northern Germany, Scandinavian, Frisian names such as Ava, Jetta, Lena, Jonte, Joris and Piet are often disproportionately represented.

According to Bielefeld, there are even two trends in eastern Germany.

“On the one hand, retro names are popular.

And the other trend is English and American names. ”Popular retro names include Anton, Theodor and Paul as well as Mathilda, Frieda and Emma.

Unusual names have also found their way back into the statistics.

Accordingly, Antonino, Maleo, Bendix, Wisdom, Napoleon and Rurik were given relatively rarely for the boys and Alondra, Diliana, Soley, Adora, Lillesol and Soulin for the girls.

For the nationwide evaluation, Bielefeld and his small team used first name data from 433 cities.

Two thirds of the data comes from registry offices and the rest from baby galleries in maternity hospitals.

According to its own information, Bielefeld has recorded around 230,000 birth notifications.

This corresponds to about 30 percent of the babies born in Germany.

The Society for German Language also publishes similar statistics with around 90 percent of all data from the registry offices - but later than Knud Bielefeld.