Names of Chile CL

SRCEI — Nombres más comunes (guaguas, 1920–2021) records Angel as the commonest given name in Chile; the names that most distinguish Chile from the rest of the world are Carmen, Muñoz and Araya.

Written in Spanish.

Population
18M
Official registers
1
Name forms recorded
57K
BBuilt from 1 official register (2021), 56,745 name forms in our corpus, 3 cited works.

At least one official register, plus a written account of the naming system.

The account of the naming system rests on encyclopaedia and genealogy sources; it has not yet been checked against onomastic literature.

fewerlarger share
Where the names most characteristic of Chile are borne outside it — the same spelling, counted in our record corpus. Shares are of all bearers of those names anywhere, Chile included.

How names work in Chile

Names in Chile follow one naming tradition. Its structure, its given-name and surname stock, how to address someone and what trips software up are set out on its own page.

The most common names in Chile

Counts children born in the year · authority tier 2

This register publishes counts, not ranks; the numbering is the order of its own figures.

SRCEI — Nombres más comunes (guaguas, 1920–2021), 2021 — 16 given names counted over children born that year.
#NameBearers recordedOur rank
1Angel3100
2Cathalina1—
3Dener1—
4Erika1—
5Ester172
6Isidora1—
7Ivanna1—
8Jesús1—
9Liam1—
10Lucas1—
11Maite1—
12Manuel112
13Mateo1—
14Milagro1—
15Pascal1—
16Wilson1—

Where the two lists disagree

15 of SRCEI — Nombres más comunes (guaguas, 1920–2021)'s top 16 given names sit five or more places away in our record corpus. Neither ranking is wrong; they count different people.

SRCEI — Nombres más comunes (guaguas, 1920–2021) 2021Across all recordsangel: 1 → 100 · ranks lower across all records1. angel100cathalina: 2 → not ranked · not in our corpus’s top ranks for this country2. cathalinanot rankeddener: 3 → not ranked · not in our corpus’s top ranks for this country3. denernot rankederika: 4 → not ranked · not in our corpus’s top ranks for this country4. erikanot rankedester: 5 → 72 · ranks lower across all records5. ester72isidora: 6 → not ranked · not in our corpus’s top ranks for this country6. isidoranot rankedivanna: 7 → not ranked · not in our corpus’s top ranks for this country7. ivannanot rankedjesús: 8 → not ranked · not in our corpus’s top ranks for this country8. jesúsnot rankedliam: 9 → not ranked · not in our corpus’s top ranks for this country9. liamnot rankedlucas: 10 → not ranked · not in our corpus’s top ranks for this country10. lucasnot rankedmaite: 11 → not ranked · not in our corpus’s top ranks for this country11. maitenot rankedmanuel: 12 → 1212. manuel12mateo: 13 → not ranked · not in our corpus’s top ranks for this country13. mateonot rankedmilagro: 14 → not ranked · not in our corpus’s top ranks for this country14. milagronot rankedpascal: 15 → not ranked · not in our corpus’s top ranks for this country15. pascalnot rankedwilson: 16 → not ranked · not in our corpus’s top ranks for this country16. wilsonnot ranked
Hover a line for what is available to explain that row.
SRCEI — Nombres más comunes (guaguas, 1920–2021), 2021 on the left; every record we hold for Chile on the right. A dashed line means the name is not in our top ranks for this country at all.

The register counts one population in one year — everyone it enumerates, once. Our corpus counts records: historical registers going back decades, the diaspora, business and place records, and several generations of births. A name that was common two generations ago outranks a name common today; a name whose spelling scatters across sources (diacritics dropped, transliterated differently) loses ground, because only its dominant spelling is ranked.

Characteristic of Chile

Not the most common names — the most distinctive ones. A name appears here when Chile holds a larger share of its bearers than the world does, weighted by how much of the country's whole name distribution it accounts for.

SantiagoDelCarmenMariaPatricioLuisJavieraAlejandraManuelEduardoRodrigoRosaCarlosIgnacioJorgeAndreaCarolinaJoseConstanzaEnriqueHernanPilarJuanCristianFranciscoPaolaAndresXimenaFelipeFranciscaAngelicaClaudioSegundoCamilaElizabethHectorJavierCatalinaElianaMauricioMargaritaGuillermoEstebanFernandaCeciliaEsterMarcelaMacarenaMercedesDanielaMarceloPaulinaPedroValentinaMatiasJaimeJacquelineFernandoAlejandroIgnacia
Sized by how much of the difference between Chile's name distribution and the world's this name accounts for. Hover for its share here against its share worldwide.●

Over time

MaríaAnaRosaPatriciaClaudia1920202121,448
SRCEI — Nombres más comunes (guaguas, 1920–2021), 1920–2021 (102 years). The line is that register's own figure for each year — not a total across registers, which would count the same people twice. The publisher labels this series “flow”.

Up to five names at a time.

Scripts & spelling

Santiagogiven name●
Mariagiven name●
Delgiven name●
Carmengiven name●
Juangiven name●
The best-attested names in Chile, in the spelling our records use there. Where a Latin spelling is also attested it is shown beneath — a spelling from the corpus, not a machine romanisation.

Countries whose names look alike

Measured as the overlap between each country's top 300 given-name forms, weighted by how common each is — the fuzzy-set approach of Lauc (2024), on a truncated inventory.

Registers & sources

Official registers

  • SRCEI — Nombres más comunes (guaguas, 1920–2021)2021headline (given)

    Servicio de Registro Civil e Identificación (SRCEI). Counts: newborns. given. 8,770 forms. 1920–2021. Licence: MIT (guaguas R package).

    What we know about this register

    SRCEI civil registration data compiled by rivaquiroga/guaguas R package. Columns: anio (year), nombre (name), sexo (sex: M/F), n (count), proporcion. Coverage 1920-2021. Srcei.cl XLS files are WAF-protected.

    Last verified 2026-05-10.

Cited works

Behind this page's own account — its one-line answer, its explanation of why the rankings differ, and the notes on its registers. Each naming tradition cites its own sources on its page. Not yet checked against onomastic literature.

About this data

Official figures are reproduced from the register named beside them, at the year named beside them, and are never combined across registers. The "across all records" ranking counts records in our own corpus — historical registers, the diaspora, business and place records — and is not a population count. Bearer estimates are omitted where a name accounts for more than a quarter of a country's records, because the estimate is not defensible there. Names listed by reference works and licensed name dictionaries are cited as attesting a name; their figures are not published.

Data snapshot: 2026-09-12.

Questions

What is the most common given name in Chile?
Angel, according to SRCEI — Nombres más comunes (guaguas, 1920–2021) (2021), with 3 bearers recorded.
Why do sources disagree about the commonest name in Chile?
Because they count different people. SRCEI — Nombres más comunes (guaguas, 1920–2021) (2021) counts one population once, and its commonest given name is Angel. Our corpus counts every record we hold — historical registers, the diaspora, decades of births — and its commonest is Maria. Both are on this page, each with its denominator.

Cite this page: Mondonomo, “Names of Chile”, https://nelma.mondonomo.ai/names/CL (data snapshot 2026-09-12). Official figures from SRCEI — Nombres más comunes (guaguas, 1920–2021).