Malmö: 2007 Baby names

Elias, Josef, Alexander, Erik, Julia, Ella, Maja, Sara, Elin. Malmö's new babies mostly get the same names as children elsewhere in Sweden. What made the names of Malmö's 2078 boys and 1929 girls unique last year were the Arabic names and the names which have so many spellings.

Mohammed (with 7 different spellings) had been in the top five names in Malmö for the past decade, while in the national list it's much further down (71st place).

Similarly, Sara is often called Zahraa, Sarah, Zahra or Zarah. Judging by their last name,
most of the Saras in Malmö's have Middle Eastern roots. Three out of 40 have a "Swedish" last name, adn that's the explanation why Sara is number 1 in Malmö, but in 29th place in the national list.

Danes are
Malmö's largest immigrant group, but it's hard to say that it's noticeable among the baby names. The reason being that the same names are popular in both countries. The most common names in Denmark are Emma and Sofie. Sara and Ida are also in the top ten list. The Danish top names that aren't as common in Sweden are Laura and Julie.

Some of the most popular Danish boy's names are popular in Sweden. The top name in Denmark is Mathias and Emil, Rasmus, Frederik, Magnus and Oliver are also high on the list. More typical Danish top names are Mikkel, Mads and Nikolaj. Last year two
Malmö boys were named Mads and four were named Mikkel.

Foreign names are also noticeable among the names which were given to only one child. The list of 2007 has hundreds such names.

Girls' names which became very popular among
Malmös newborns since 2006: Alice, Ella, Stella, Moa, Elvira and Mariam. Among boys only Emil and Theo increased in popularity.

The top three boy's names in Malmö: Elias (47), Mohammed (40) (Mohamad, Mohamed, Mohammad, Muhammad, Muhammed, Mahamed) and Josef (35) (Yosef, Yousef, Yusuf, Youssef, Joseph, Jossef, Yousseph, Youssuf). [The complete list is available here (in Swedish)]

Source: Sydsvenskan 1, 2 (Swedish) h/t Mitt Sverige (Swedish)

See also:
Oslo: Muhammad most popular boy's name

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