Durban - A Stats SA report released today on birth registrations and occurrences of live births for 2021 has revealed the most popular baby names in the country.
The report said 1 087 526 births were registered in 2021 with 949 757 being birth registrations for births that occurred in the same year while the remainder were late registrations.
Of the 949 757 children born in 2021, there were 498 573 boys and 491 056 girls.
The first part of the year was popular for births, with most births in March, with May the second most common month of births, for the second year in a row. January had the third-highest proportion of births.
In terms of names for boys, the top three were Lethabo, followed by Lubanzi and Melokuhle.
The leading names for girls were Melokuhle, Omphile and Iminathi.
Melokuhle, Lethabo and Lethokuhle appeared on male and female top 10 lists.
“In general, the popular baby forenames for males and females reflect positive hopes for the child, express beliefs and are inspired by positive connotations of both love and acceptance,” the report noted.
Regarding surnames, for both sexes Dlamini was the most common baby surname in 2021, closely followed by Nkosi and Ndlovu.
The report said the negative impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on birth registrations was also evident.
“The negative impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on service delivery, and associated restrictions on movements, are still evident in the patterns observed in the 2021 birth registrations data. The reversal of gains made in timely registration of births (registration within 30 days) and increase in late registrations in the last two years are evident from the 2021 registrations data,” it said.