About KiddosNames
KiddosNames.com is a free resource for parents, researchers, and anyone curious about baby name trends across Europe and North America. The site brings together official birth name rankings published each year by government statistical offices in 13 countries — displaying them side by side so you can explore, compare, and discover names backed by real data.
The project was created because finding reliable, government-sourced name data is surprisingly difficult. Most baby name websites rely on crowdsourced votes, forum discussions, or opaque private databases. KiddosNames goes directly to the source: the national statistics authority in each country. Every ranking you see here is exactly what the government published.
No advertising algorithms, no affiliate links behind name recommendations, no pay-to-rank. Just official data — updated weekly, free to browse.
How the Data Pipeline Works
Each week, an automated open-source pipeline fetches the latest name rankings directly from each country's official statistical office. The process is fully transparent:
- The pipeline contacts each statistical authority's public data endpoint or published report.
- Name rankings are extracted, cleaned, and normalised to a consistent format.
- Entries are enriched with etymological meanings, linguistic origins (Germanic, Latin, Hebrew, Greek, Norse, Celtic, Slavic, and more), and historical descriptions.
- Where a country has published data for multiple years, all years are stored so you can track how rankings have shifted over time.
- The site updates automatically — no manual editing required.
Government birth registries typically publish data 6–12 months after the end of a calendar year. Austria's Statistik Austria, for example, usually releases the previous year's birth name statistics in the spring. KiddosNames automatically shows the most recent available year for each country, even if that year differs between countries.
Data Sources by Country
All 13 country datasets come directly from authoritative national sources. No third-party estimates, crowdsourced lists, or commercial databases are used.
What Each Name Entry Includes
Beyond the raw ranking, each name on KiddosNames is enriched with context to help parents make an informed choice:
- Official rank — the exact position published by the national statistics office for the selected year
- Etymological meaning — the root meaning traced to the original language of the name
- Linguistic origin — the language family (Germanic, Latin, Hebrew, Greek, Norse, Celtic, Slavic, Arabic, and more)
- Historical description — where the name comes from and why it has endured across generations
- Cross-country popularity — every other country where the name ranks, with its position there
- Localised translations — meaning and description in the local language of the selected country
Name meanings and origins are researched from established etymological references including Hanks & Hodges' A Dictionary of First Names, Withycombe's The Oxford Dictionary of English Christian Names, and equivalent sources for Scandinavian, Romance, and Slavic name traditions.
Cross-Country Name Trends
One of the most useful features of KiddosNames is the ability to see which names travel well across national borders. A name like Emma has ranked in the top 5 in Austria, Germany, the USA, Canada, Norway, and Sweden simultaneously — making it one of the most internationally recognised names of the 21st century.
This cross-border popularity is increasingly common. European integration, shared streaming media, and rising international mobility have accelerated the spread of certain names across language boundaries. Parents who want a name that relatives in multiple countries can easily pronounce and remember benefit especially from this kind of comparison.
The trend analysis section on the main page (visible when you select a country) shows: the current #1 name and how long it has held that position, which names entered the top 10 for the first time this year, and which names climbed the most positions year-over-year. This gives a picture not just of what is popular, but of what is rising.
Popular names across borders in 2024
- Emma — #1 or #2 in Austria, Germany, Norway, USA, Canada
- Noah — top 5 in Austria, Germany, Netherlands, USA, Canada, Denmark
- Sofia / Sophia — top 10 in Italy, Spain, Germany, Sweden, Norway, Canada, USA
- Liam — top 5 in USA, Canada, UK, Ireland, Netherlands
- Mia — top 10 in Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway
- Oliver — top 3 in UK, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Australia
These are not coincidences — they reflect genuine cultural convergence in baby naming practices across the Western world.
Contact & Feedback
KiddosNames is operated by secnetic GmbH. If you notice an error in the data, want to suggest a new country, or have any other question, please reach out:
For legal information, imprint, and our full privacy policy, see secnetic.at/impressum.html.