Babies: the most popular names

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Babies: the most popular names

A survey has shown that Gabriel and Júlia were the two most popular names for babies born in 2009

“My son will have a Saint’s name”.  This is from the songPais e Filhos (Legião Urbana), one of the classics of Brazilian pop music. This is indeed [1] part of Brazilian life.Christening [2] children with Biblical names has been common since colonial times, and the trend [3] continues in the 21^st century. According to website BabyCenterBrasil.com, the Bible remains one of the sources of inspiration when it comes to choosing children’s names. The website has created a database of over 28,000 babies born in 2009.  Based on this database Baby Center has ranked [4] the most popular names for 2009. In the ranking Biblical names take six of the ten most popular names. Gabriel, the saint’s name, comes first. Miguel (another Saint),  was eighth, with Mateus (3^rd) and Pedro (7^th) – names of two of Jesus Christ’s Apostles [5] – also in the top ten, along with Lucas (5^th) and Davi (4^th). The top ten also includes Arthur (2^nd), Guilherme (6^th), Enzo (9^th) and Gustavo (10^th).

  

Names: girls’ ranking

For girls’ names the preference is for more universal names. The two most popular names in 2009 were Júlia and Sofia.  Double-barreled names were also popular, taking three of the ten top spots - Maria Eduarda (3^rd), Maria Clara (9^th) and Ana Clara (10^th).  The top ten is completed with Giovanna (4^th), Isabela (5^th), Beatriz (6^th), Manuela (7^th) and Yasmin (8^th).

Vocabulary

1 indeed – realmente

2 christening  (to christen) – batizar

3 trend – tendência

4 to rank – ranquear / classificar

5 Apostle – apóstolo

Matéria publicada na edição de número 53 da Revista Maganews

Áudio – Aasita Muralikrishna

Ilustração - Calberto