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If you’ve just named your baby girl Sophia, you’re definitely not alone.
In fact, according to babynamewizard.com, Sofia is the most popular girl’s name in the world, topping the list in Mexico, Russia, Argentina, Italy, Switzerland, Estonia, Chile and Slovakia.
In the meantime, Sophia/Sofia/Sophie ranked number two and three in 20 countries, and made the top 25 in a total of two-thirds of all countries that report baby name statistics. It ranked number seven in Australia for 2017.
“It just blew me away that so many different languages and cultures would arrive at the same sound at the same time,” Wattenberg told Live Science.
“In fact, for three years it topped the name charts in both the United States and Russia. When was the last time those two nations agreed so completely on anything?”
“In essence,” Wattenberg continues, “the entire Western world has agreed on the most attractive baby name.”
So what makes Sofia so popular?
“As every parent knows,” says Wattenberg, “the choice of a baby name is multi-factored.”
“I can’t claim to fully understand what that makes Sofia irresistible in Finland or Belarus, but a look through American eyes offers some clues to its global appeal.
“The name is instantly recognizable as a classic, yet it was uncommon in every spelling from the 1930s through the 1980s. That means today’s parents didn’t grow up surrounded by Sophias, so it doesn’t sound tired or over-familiar to them,” she says.
Wattenberg believes that the name “obviously travels well” and “appeals to varied cultural backgrounds.”
This article originally appeared on Better Homes and Gardens.
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