Ane, as has occurred since 1996, is the top ranking first name chosen by parents for their daughters, according information collected by Eustat on births that occurred between 2002 and 2004 in the A.C. of the Basque Country. Second and third place corresponded to Irati and Leire. They were followed by Nerea, Naroa, María or Paula.

Iker continued to be the favourite boy’s name, followed by Jon and Unai. They were followed by Asier, Mikel and Ander.

The Civil Register allows a maximum of two single and one compound name; although parents opt for one single name.

In the list of the hundred most popular names there is only one compound name for boys -Jon Ander; on the other hand, girls’ compound names with María, so common in the past, do not appear in the list.

Basque names predominate, some registered with different spellings; this is the case of Ane-Anne, Itxaso-Itsaso, Leire-Leyre, Jon-Ion, Aritz-Haritz. All these cases of two ways to express the name, except for Ion, are among the 100 most popular names.

Except for the case of María and Miren, Basque forms of names are more common than Spanish forms; this is the case for Ane and Ana, Xabier and Javier, Jon and Juan, Mikel and Miguel.

In particular, in birth statistics for 2004, 1,367 different names for girls were registered and 1,174 for boys. 900 of these in the case of girls and 820 in the case of boys appeared only once and among these are Chinese, African, Arab, Italian and Anglo-Saxon, etc names.