Moscow civil registries unveil the most unusual names for newborns in 2017

The Moscow Civil Registry has unveiled the most unusual names given by Muscovites to their newborns in 2017. Several boys received ancient Russian names: Velesvet, Ladomir, Patrikei and Kharlampy. Other rare names for boys included Forward, Nord and Franklin. One couple named their baby son Orfei in honour of mythical Ancient Greek singer and musician Orpheus. The girls’ names included Zlatozara, Ladislava, Agrafena and Iskra, as well as Dorofeya, Vassa and Isidora.

The top five uncommon classical names in 2017 were Valentin, Gennady, Vitaly, Anatoly and Valery for boys and Lyudmila, Galina, Inna, Zinaida and Larisa for girls.

“While choosing an unusual name for a child, parents are often driven by their desire to give their newborn son or daughter a beautiful and less widespread name,” Head of the Moscow Civil Registry Irina Muravyova said.

The list of the most popular baby names in 2017 is almost the same as in 2016. Alexander comes first among male names with 3,201 boys registered under this name. Mikhail, which ranked fourth in 2016, moved to the second position (2,677). Artyom ranks third (2,621), followed by Maxim (2,568), Daniil (2,405), Ivan (2,289), Dmitry (1,968), Kirill (1,478), Matvei (1,459) and Andrei (1,453).

Sofya, or Sofia, remains, as before, the most popular name for girls in Moscow families. As many as 3,780 girls born last year were given that name. The name Maria is the second most popular (2,709), and Anna ranks third (2,595). The top ten include Alisa (2,200), Viktoria (2,124), Anastasia (2,082), Polina (1,962), Alexandra (1,817), Yelizaveta (1,806) and Yekaterina (1,676). The name Darya, which ranked tenth in 2016, failed to make it into the top ten of 2017.   

The monthly rating of the most popular baby names in Moscow is available on the Open Data Portal.

A total of 134,572 babies were born in Moscow last year, including 1,838 twins, 34 triplets and one set of quadruplets. Of these, 62,692 babies were families’ first-borns, 49,190 were second-borns and 21,998 were third-borns and later-borns.

Last year, Moscow experienced a wedding boom. According to official reports from civil registry offices, more than 90,000 marriages were registered in 2017, up by 4,000 from the year before.