Pick a proper Spanish name
When you study Spanish, sometimes you pick a Spanish name so that the natives can easily pronounce it. Have you wondered if the name you picked sounds weird for them? This post probably helps you pick a proper Spanish name.
As a Chinese (or maybe Asian generally) student of Spanish, you are likely to be asked to choose a Spanish name in your first Spanish classes. You might wonder if the name you pick is common or rare among the Spanish local population 1 or if the name you like is too old or too young for you.
The data from the National Institute of Statistics (INE) of Spain probably helps you get rid of the doubts.
How many Spaniards are named…?
The widget below allows you to see i) a name’s basic information, such as the sex assigned at birth (male or female. Note that some names like ‘Alex’ and ‘Andrea’ can be taken by both groups), total frequency, and average age; ii) a name’s frequency distribution across Spanish provinces and age groups. Switch the view between ‘Mapa’ and ‘Gáfico’ to see the details.
(Source: Instituto Nacional de Estadística, España)
List of Spanish names
For those who still cannot make decisions on the name, check the list of Spanish names provided by the INE.
Download the frequency list of Spanish names.xls (Published date: May 20th, 20212)
A handy tool that helps you choose a Spanish name
(Source: Calcuworld)
Due to space constraints, this post only applies to the Spanish population. If you are interested in the names used in Latin American, you can search them on internet. For example, you can find the most popular names used in México on the INEGI’s (National Institute of Statistics, Geography and Informatics) website. ↩︎
If the link is broken due to outdated data, please check the latest one here . ↩︎
Gang Yao
Lecturer
My research interests include corpus linguistics, Spanish as a Foreign Language, and academic discourse.