The National Institute of Statistics (INE) has released for another year the list of the most frequent names of women and men in Spain, based on statistical data from the latest national registry corresponding to 2023.
The data reflects that Antonio and María Carmen remain unbeatable and continue to be the most common names in Spain. A total of 630,253 women are called that in our country while there are 614,853 men whose name is Antonio.
The most common names among men continue to be the classic Manuel, José, Francisco, David, Juan, Javier, Daniel, and the compound names of José Antonio and Francisco Javier close the list. As for women, María, Carmen, Ana María and Laura are in the top five most common names. And closing the list, in this order, María Pilar, María Dolores, Isabel, María Teresa and Ana.
Have the names changed over the last few decades? The truth is that in the 70s, the three most used names in Spain among children born in 1970-1979 were David, Antonio and Francisco Javier while in 2020-2022 they have been Martín, Hugo and Mateo. All different. The same thing happens in the case of women, when the parents of girls born in the 70s opted for compound names like María Carmen, María José and Ana María and now names like Lucía, Sofía and Martina lead the list.
In addition to the notable differences by decade, there are also variations between communities. In the following map we can see how compound names have disappeared from the map in all provinces over the years. The choice of a child’s name also has a lot to do with the family’s place of origin or residence, and with the passage of time.
For example, the most common names in Bizkaia in the 1970s were Aitor, Javier and Óscar, but the most commonly used names now are Markel, Oihan and Jon. Montserrat, Mónica and Marta were the preferred names for babies in the 70s in Barcelona, but parents opt for Júlia, Lucía and Emma in the province.