Every year, parents across the country welcome new life into the world. While the experience of parenthood varies widely, one commonality is that all parents must choose a name for their child.
Statistics Canada has compiled a list of the nation’s most popular baby names from 1991 to 2022. The diversity of baby names is growing—in the last 30 years, there has been a 31% increase in the number of baby names in Canada.
So, what were last year’s most popular picks?
In 2022, Noah was the most popular boy name for the second straight year.
In 2021, Noah ranked as Canada's most popular name for baby boys for the first time over the period examined. Noah unseated Liam, which was the number one boy name from 2012 to 2020. Noah has biblical roots—namely Noah’s Ark—and originates from the Hebrew name “Noach,” meaning “rest.”
Liam is derived from William, a name with Irish roots, meaning “strong-willed warrior” or “protector.” In 2022, Liam remained in the number two seat for most popular boy names, followed by William at number 3.
Among girls, Olivia kept the top spot, undefeated for seven consecutive years. Since 2003, the number one spot has been held by either Emma or Olivia—with Olivia ranked first in 11 of the 13 years from 2010 to 2022.
Olivia means “olive tree” in Latin and is an old British name dating back to the 13th century. Previously, Emma—with Germanic roots meaning “universal” or “whole”—was the most popular name for girls, ranking first from 2003 to 2009, and again in 2012 and 2015.
There were some names that broke into the top 100 for the very first time in 2022, while others made big jumps in the rankings from 2021 to 2022. Check out the Canada’s most popular baby names in 2022 infographic to find out all about it.
We also invite you to consult the Baby Name Observatory interactive web application, which contains a search engine to look up baby name popularity for boys and girls and shows the top 20 most popular baby names from 1991 to 2022. Note that for privacy reasons, names with a count of less than five in a given year are excluded from the visualization tool.
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Contact information
For more information, contact the Statistical Information Service (toll-free 1-800-263-1136; 514-283-8300; infostats@statcan.gc.ca) or Media Relations (statcan.mediahotline-ligneinfomedias.statcan@statcan.gc.ca).