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Not a Heidi in sight: The most popular Swiss baby names in 2018

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Not a Heidi in sight: The most popular Swiss baby names in 2018
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Just under 88,000 babies were born in Switzerland last year. LOTS of them were called Emma. Or Liam. Here's what else we learned from the latest hit parade of Swiss baby names.

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Any name as long as its short

The five most popular names for baby girls in Switzerland last year were Emma (504), which was ahead of evergreen favourite Mia (445), Sofia, Elena and Lea in that order. Among the top ten names, only Emilia broke the five-letter barrier (just).

Short and sweet is also popular for boy’s names. In top place is Liam (446), followed very closely by Noah (443), Leon, Luca and Elias.

...and any name as long as it ends in ‘a’

Only one of the top 20 girls’ names in Switzerland in 2018 does not end with the letter ‘a’: 20th place-getter Elin. This was also the most popular name for girls in the canton of Appenzell Innerrhoden last year.

READ ALSO: Readers' verdict - Switzerland is great for kids but bad for parents

Other top 20 girls names we haven’t mentioned yet include Mila, Anna, Laura, Lena, Lara, Lina, Lia…well, you get the idea.

You must be Emma?

If you have made the terrible mistake of a forgetting the name of a newborn baby, go with Emma. This was not only the most popular girl’s baby name in Switzerland overall last year, it was also the most popular name in cantons including Zurich, Aargau, Solothurn, Jura, Valais, Geneva and Fribourg and Vaud.

Not a Heidi to be seen

The super-Swiss name of Heidi does not even appear in the list of the top 1,000 names for baby girls in Switzerland last year.

It’s a long, long fall from grace for a name that was the 13th most popular name for Swiss women of any age in 1948. The name was still in the top 20 a decade later but hasn’t reappeared since.

Move over Noah, here comes Liam

After five years at top of the tree, Noah slipped to second place among boys’ names in 2018, making room for Liam. Incidentally (or maybe not so incidentally), these were also the two most popular names in the US last year, according to the US Social Security administration.

In another parallel with the US, Emma was the most popular name for baby girls in that country last year.

Meet Daniel and Maria

Baby names aside, the two most common first names in Switzerland are Maria (there are 82,577 of them) and Daniel (with 62,560 in total).

However, neither of these names were among the top 20 baby names in Switzerland last year. Maria came 37th for girl’s names and Daniel ranked 46th for boys.

READ ALSO: Parenting - should you raise kids the independent 'Swiss' way?

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