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Baby Names in Portugal

Trends + an allowed-name checker

Which names Portuguese parents have chosen most since 2017, and whether the name you want is one the IRN (the civil registry institute) has already accepted. Type a name to see its year-by-year trend and an instant check against the roughly 7,500 names already on the list.

By Elijah · UPDATED JULY 2026 ·5 MIN ·OFFICIAL SOURCES
KEY FACTS
No. 1 in 2025 (provisional)
Maria and Francisco
Maria at the top
21 years running
IRN list
~7,500 names already accepted
Sources
IRN / dados.gov.pt
EXPERIMENTE:
Escreva um nome para ver a tendência de registos e verificar se consta da lista do IRN.
TOP DE NOMES POR ANO
20172018201920202021202220232024*2025*

* provisório (dados até novembro)

Meninas

# Nome Registos Variação
1 Maria 4791 =
2 Alice 1195 =
3 Leonor 1146 ↑ 2
4 Matilde 1047 =
5 Benedita 963 ↓ 2
6 Aurora 874 ↑ 1
7 Olívia 722 novo
8 Carolina 714 ↓ 2
9 Camila 703 ↓ 1
10 Francisca 692 novo

Meninos

# Nome Registos Variação
1 Francisco 1495 =
2 Tomás 1318 ↑ 1
3 Duarte 1256 ↑ 3
4 Afonso 1226 ↑ 3
5 Vicente 1201 ↓ 1
6 João 1095 ↓ 1
7 Lourenço 1087 ↓ 5
8 Martim 980 novo
9 Miguel 928 =
10 Gabriel 896 ↓ 2

How this works

Type a name at the top of the page to see how many babies were registered with it since 2017, its best-ever rank, and whether it is already on the IRN's list of accepted given names. Further down, pick a year to see the top 10 (or top 20, in earlier years) girls' and boys' names. Everything runs in your browser.

  1. 1
    Type a name
    At the top of the page, or click one of the suggested names.
  2. 2
    See the trend
    If the name was in the top 20 (or top 10) in any year since 2017, I show a chart of registrations per year, its best rank, and flag the years it fell outside the top.
  3. 3
    I check the IRN list
    I compare the name, with and without accents and capitalisation, against the roughly 7,500 names the IRN has already accepted in past registrations.
  4. 4
    Explore the yearly ranking
    Pick a year between 2017 and 2025 to see the top names for girls and boys, with the change from the year before.

Frequently asked

What are the rules for naming a child in Portugal?
A Portuguese birth registration allows at most two nomes próprios (given names) and four apelidos (surnames). Given names must follow Portuguese orthography and cannot raise doubts about the holder’s sex. Foreign names are allowed when a parent holds foreign citizenship, or when the family proves the name is already used in that form. The IRN (Instituto dos Registos e do Notariado, Portugal’s civil registry institute) list gathers names already accepted in past registrations, and works as a reference, not a closed list.
What if the name I want is not on the list?
The list is not exhaustive. The conservador (registrar), the civil registry officer who processes the request, can accept a new name as long as it follows the general rules, even if it has never been registered before. If in doubt, you can ask the Conservatória dos Registos Centrais (the central civil registry office) for a preliminary ruling before the birth, to find out whether the name will be accepted.
Where do these numbers come from?
From the IRN’s annual data. The years 2017 to 2023 are the official top 20 published on dados.gov.pt. 2024 and 2025 are the provisional top 10 the IRN releases to the press at the end of each year, with figures through late November, so they are not yet the final numbers.
Why do a name’s numbers disappear in some years?
Because only each year’s top 20 is published (top 10 for 2024 and 2025). If a name is missing for a year, that does not mean zero registrations, it means it fell outside the top for that year. There is no public data on the exact position below the cut.
Can I use accents or a foreign spelling?
As a rule, the name must follow Portuguese orthography: for example, “Tomás” is accepted, but the English spelling “Thomas” normally is not, unless a parent holds foreign citizenship or the family proves the foreign spelling is already in use. That is why the IRN list sometimes shows two spellings of the same name, like “Tiago” and “Thiago”.
Why is Maria so dominant?
Maria has topped the girls’ list for more than two decades, largely thanks to the tradition of pairing it with a second nome próprio, such as Maria Leonor or Maria Inês. Many of these girls go by the second name day to day, but “Maria” is what gets registered as the first given name, and that is what these numbers count.
OFFICIAL SOURCES
DISCLAIMER
The 2017 to 2023 figures are the IRN's official top 20 published on dados.gov.pt; 2024 and 2025 are the provisional top 10 released to the press, with data through late November, and may still change. A name missing from a given year did not have zero registrations, it simply fell outside the published top list. The check against the IRN list is informational only: the list gathers names already accepted in past registrations, it is not a closed list, and the final decision always rests with the conservador (registrar) at the civil registry. This tool is not an IRN service and does not replace the official birth registration.