Love of Country (Names)

Places make perennially trendy choices as baby names.  City names are really hot items, and you’re very likely to meet a little London or Savannah.  What’s not as likely is that you’ll meet someone named after a country.

Here is an exhaustive list countries that were used as baby names in the U.S. in 2015, organized by continent!  When the name is popular enough to rank nationally, you’ll see that number in parentheses ().  Finally, when there’s more than one word in the country’s name, I write fuller name after the numbers. 

Africa

• Chad: 311 boys (#763).
• Egypt: 199 girls and 31 boys.
• Ivory: 392 girls (#717) and 36 boys.  Ivory Coast, a.k.a Côte d’Ivoire.   
• Kenya: 307 girls (#890), 7 boys.
• Mali: 41 girls, 5 boys. 
• Nigeria: 8 girls. 
• Sierra: 778 girls (#408).  Sierra Leone.  Leone was given to 8 girls and 23 boys.

Asia and the Middle East

• China: 33 girls. 
• India: 261 girls. 
• Iran: 7 girls and 11 boys. 
• Israel: 1563 boys (#240), 59 girls. 
• Jordan: 6524 boys (#60), 1209 girls (#262).
• Korea: 12 girls.  South Korea. 
• Malaysia: 717 girls (#437). 
• Syria: 13 girls.
• Taiwan: 6 boys.
• Thailand: 9 boys.

Australia and Oceania

• Australia: 5 girls.
• Marshall: 1090 boys (#319).  Marshall Islands.
• Solomon: 853 boys (#376).  Solomon Islands. 
• Zealand: 5 girls.  New Zealand.

Europe

• Cyprus: 11 boys. 
• Finland: 5 boys.
• France: 5 girls. 
• Georgia: 1424 girls (#230). 
• Germany: 12 girls.
• Ireland: 272 girls (#983), 5 boys.
• Italy: 99 girls. 
• Marino: 22 boys.  San Marino. 
• Sweden: 8 girls.

North America and the Caribbean

• America: 280 (#960).  United States of America. 
• Belize: 5 girls.

  

• Costa: 15 boys.  Costa Rica.
• Dominica: 14 girls. 
• Jamaica: 12 girls. 
• Lucia: 1440 girls (#225).  Saint Lucia. 
• Salvador: 421 boys (#630).  El Salvador. 
• Trinidad: 10 girls, 22 boys.  Trinidad and Tobago. 
• Vincent: 3697 boys (#109), 6 girls.  St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

South America

• Brazil: 13 girls, 6 boys.

Thoughts, anyone?  I’m personally amazed that South America only has one country currently serving as name-fodder…Argentina has charted before, but apparently not since 2013.