Ane and Leire, as has been the case since 1996, come first and second in the choice of girls’ first names, according to Eustat data concerning births in the years 2000 to 2002 in the A.C. of the Basque Country. They are followed, with slight variations, by María, Nerea, Irati, Maider, Maialen, Paula and Ainhoa,

On the other hand, Jon ceases to be the most popular boy’s name among parents, and drops to second place, behind Iker. Following these, the most common were Unai, Mikel, Ander, Asier, Aitor, Julen and Xabier.

The Civil Register allows a maximum of two single names or one compound name; even so, parents opt for one simple one.

In the list of the hundred most popular names, the only combination to be found for boys is Jon Ander, whereas for girls those names combined with María that were so common in the past do not appear at all.

The majority are Basque names, some being registered in different written forms, as is the case with Ane-Anne, Itxaso-Itsaso, Leire-Leyre, Jon-Ion, or Aritz-Haritz. In all these cases, the two ways of writing the name, except for Haritz, are among the top 100.

Except in the case of María and Miren, the Basque form of a name is more popular than its Spanish counterpart; this is true of Ane and Ana, Xabier and Javier, Jon and Juan, or Mikel and Miguel.

The source that was used for the production of this information gave the names written in capitals without accents, so in several cases it was not possible to distinguish between a name in Basque or one in Spanish, since the accent is the only differentiating feature between the two. In these cases, both options were presented jointly (Maria / María, Sofia / Sofía, Adrian / Adrián, Martin / Martín).

In birth statistics for 2002, 1,190 different girls’ names were registered and 1,005 for boys. Of these, 773, in the case of girls, and 677 in the case of boys, appear only once and these include Chinese, African, Arab, Italian and Anglo-Saxon names, among others.