New Zealand Baby Names

New Zealand and Australia top 100 baby names are very similar.

In fact, in the top ten of the boys, six names are shared including Oliver in #1, both also feature Jack, William, Noah, James and Lucas. Thomas, Ethan, Jackson (and variants) and Lachlan round out the Australian ten whilst New Zealand holds Hunter, George, Mason and Arlo.

Charlotte is number #1 in both Australia and New Zealand, Olivia, Mia, Ava, Amelia, Isla and Emily all sit within the top 10 across islands. It’s not until you reach #29 in the NZ line up that you find Indie, not in the AUS list and #39 Audrey in the Australian lineup.

There are 19 boys names and 20 girls that differ between the neighbouring countries although it equates to slightly less in the New Zealand list as the Australian statistics count all variants under the one name i/e Darcey, Darcie and Darci are recorded as one whereas in New Zealand they are three separate monikers.

Boys feature Australian top 100 but not NZ: Nate and longer form Nathaniel, Kai, Hamish, Nicholas, Chase, Muhammad, Sonny, Darcy, Dominic, Christian, Fletcher, Ali, Lewis, Maxwell, Marcus, Hayden, Vincent & Parker. Many of these names have featured in the NZ list in years gone by.

NZ only: Theo, Ezra, Braxton, Asher, Arthur, Bauden, Bodhi, Grayson, David, Leon, Kingston, Reuben, Phoenix, Wyatt, Roman, Nixon, Jesse & Cohen (quite a biblical heavy group!)

Girls feature only Australian top 100 but not NZ: Audrey, Savannah, Imogen, Alexis, Chelsea, Claire, Indiana (NZ has Indie), Billie, Eloise, Elsie, Eliza, Daisy, Ariana, Bonnie, Alyssa, Hayley, Eve, Aisha, Lara & Alexandra.

Nz only: Indie, Millie, Riley, Zoey, (all very ee), Maia, Freya, Pippa, Luna, Leah, Keira, Amaia, Nina, Amber, Arabella, Skylar, Clara (NZ are very keen on the soft uh sounding for girls names) and Faith.

From my years of looking at names, I  think that Australia is generally a little behind New Zealand in picking up the latest naming trends which often lead from the USA. It will be interesting to see whether Arlo will rise to the same popularity (now inside NZ top 10) and whether Luna will enter the girl’s list.