The IBGE releases today (November 4), the second edition of the survey of the most common names in Brazil, updated by the 2022 Population Census. This year, Names in Brazil includes surnames too. Among the almost 130 thousand proper names, "Maria" and "José" have kept the leadreship in the ranking since the edition relative to the 2010 Population Census. The 2022 Census also surveyed more than 200 thousand surnames: "Silva" ranks first and is present at the identification of 16.76% of the population. Access the website Names in Brazil by clicking here.

The website provides names and surnames organized by gender, person's birth period, and initial letter. Rankings of names and surnames can also be generated according to the location selected by the user: Brazil, Federation Units, or Municipalities. “The previous version of Names in Brazil, launched in 2016 with data from the 2010 Census, was an absolute and unexpected public success. Now that we have a real understanding of the general public interest in data about names, we wanted not only to update the site with data from the most recent census, but also to add more dimensions to explore,” emphasizes Rodrigo Almeida Rego, Innovation and Development manager at the IBGE and responsible for the project.

By clicking on each registered name, it is possible to find out the total number of people registered and the concentration of registrations by location, as well as a timeline showing the frequency of registrations by decade. The IBGE also offers the calculation of the median age for each of the first names (an indicator that divides the group between the 50% youngest and the 50% oldest).

When consulting the most frequent names in the ranking, it is possible, for example, to see some interesting facts: in Morrinhos (CE) and Bela Cruz (CE), out of every 100 people, 22 are named Maria (22.30% and 22.21% of the total population of the respective cities). In the city of Santana do Acaraú (CE), out of every 10 people, 1 is named Ana (equivalent to 10.41% of the total population). In Buriti dos Montes (PI), this proportion occurs with the name Antonio (equivalent to 10.06% of the total population). Among surnames, it is possible to see that 43.38% of the population of Sergipe has "Santos" in their birth certificates. In Alagoas and Pernambuco, the surname "Silva," which leads the ranking, is present in more than a third of the birth certificates of the populations of both states (35.75% and 34.23%, respectively).

Osvaldo and Terezinha give way to Gael and Helena

By analyzing the data by decade of birth, it is possible to detect the trends of names that go in and out of fashion over time, as well as those that appear more consistently. By cross-referencing the incidence graphs, one can see the decline in the use of some names over the decades, which is also reflected in the median ages, such as Osvaldo and Terezinha (62 and 66 years old), as well as the rise of "newer" names – which have much lower median ages, such as Gael and Helena (1 and 8 years old, respectively).

The new website also features a tab dedicated to facts and curiosities about the study of proper names, Onomastics, where users can explore various aspects that highlight the cultural dynamics reflected in names and surnames, as well as better understand what the naming system and the names used can reveal about a society, especially when analyzed or compared over time and territorial spaces.

Names Around the World

Another new feature of the website is the "Names Around the World" map, where you can navigate and discover the most common names and surnames in each country. The tool also compares the number of Brazilians registered with the names displayed on the map, based on the database updated by the 2022 Census.

For example, you can select China to see that the most common surname in the country, Wang, is used by 1,513 people in Brazil. Or, you can visit Bolivia and discover that the most common first names in the country are Juan and Juana: alongside the data, the website also informs the number of registrations of these names in Brazil; 67,908 and 3,113 registrations, respectively.

Statistical Secrecy

It is important to highlight that, depending on the uniqueness of the name or surname searched, the data may be hidden to guarantee statistical confidentiality: in the case of terms with fewer than 20 occurrences in the country, for example.

It is also possible that only part of the relevant information is available and the map or graph is incomplete. This is also a guarantee of data secrecy, preventing any type of identification: in the geographical distribution, data can only be disclosed when the term has an incidence greater than 15 per FU and 10 per municipality. This protection also occurs when the results are filtered by decade.

More about the survey

The Names in Brazil project is based on the lists of residents of households on August 1, 2022, the reference date of the 2022 Census. The full name and surname of all household residents reported by the interviewee on the reference date were recorded in two separate fields. It should be noted that, for disclosure purposes, only the first name reported was considered for the 'name' field, and for the 'surname' field, a frequency of surnames was calculated, regardless of the order in which they were registered.

Variant forms of names were counted distinctly, as recorded in the list of household residents at the time of questionnaire collection. Therefore, names such as Ana or Anna, Ian or Yan, Luis or Luiz, among others, were considered with their original spelling as collected. Diacritical marks (acute accent, circumflex accent, grave accent, cedilla, umlaut, and tilde) were also not included; thus, names such as Antônio, Cauã, Luís, Luísa, among others, were considered without these marks.

The sex of the residents also exclusively reflects the information declared at the time the questionnaire was collected. For these reasons, there may be differences between the names collected in 2010 and those collected in 2022.

The first edition of Names in Brazil was based on the names reported in the 2010 PopulationCensus. You can read here what the most common names in the country were in 2010.