Most popular Indian baby names

chotachetan's picture

The precious baby needs a name, a short name (should my son suffer my fate of trying to spell Gnanashivasubramaniyam?) and possibly Sanskritized and very, very unique.

Unique? Then stick to Aditya or Arjun. That's what all expat Indians atleast in the US, end up naming their kids. In fact they have that in the default name field in the Birth Certificate application (kidding).

Jokes apart, what do people name their kids. We all know NRIs are paranoid about long names, always stick to some unpronouncible Sanskrit name... but here's an article about names from the Hindu.
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Arjun, Maya popular Indian baby names in U.S.

SILICON VALLEY: Arjun, the warrior-prince of the Mahabharatha, and Maya were the most popular names given to baby boys and girls respectively by Indians in the United States.

The name Arjun was given to 247 boys last year, ranking it 741 in the list of 1,000 most popular baby names in the U.S., compiled by the Department of Social Security Administration.

The popularity of the name has been increasing steadily since 2001 when it was ranked 977.

Aditya, the most popular name for the year 2003 ranked 743 as the second most popular Indian choice.

The name was chosen for 246 babies. Other male names that found a place in the list of 1000 are Pranav, Samir, Nikhil, Arnav, Rishi and Rahul. Among female Indian names, Maya ranked first (85 overall rank), followed by Tara (323) and Shreya (853)

Emily and Jacob remained the top names for girls and boys respectively in the United States. Emily has been the most popular female name since 1996 while Biblical name Jacob has been topping the chart since 1999.

The top 10 male names for 2004 were Jacob, Michael, Joshua, Matthew, Ethan Andrew, Daniel, William, Joseph, and Christopher whereas the honour for top ten girl's names went to Emily, Emma, Madison, Olivia, Hannah, Abigail, Isabella, Ashley, Samantha and Elizabeth.

Interestingly, Jesus as a male name ranked 70th position while Mary as a female name ranked at 63.

Mohammed as a male name found 506th position while India as a girl's name ranked 478th position.

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