Precious, Princess among the most popular baby names for 2018, says Stats SA
The Eastern Cape produced the most number of birth registrations to teenage mothers.
Picture: iStock
Just over 1 million births were registered in South Africa in 2018, according to the recorded live births report released by Statistics South Africa on Thursday, an increase of 2,0% from 2017. A total of 1 009 065 births were registered in 2018.
Though the Births and Deaths Registration Amendment Act requires that a birth be registered within 30 days, 8,1% of births registered 2018 were late, a decline of 14.2%.
In terms of age, 25 to 29 year olds accounted for the highest number of total birth registrations (259 182), followed by 20 to 24 year olds (251 551) and 30 to 34 yearolds (211 251).
Women between the ages 50 and 54 years accounted for the lowest number of birth registrations in 2018.
“Mothers aged 25–29 and 30−34 years both had the highest proportion (95,6%) of births registered during the year of occurrence, followed by mothers aged 35−39 years (95,2%) and those aged 20–24 years (94,3%). A high proportion of births registered later than the year of occurrence was observed among age groups 10−14 years (60,2%) and 50−54 years (48,6%),” said Stats SA.
Gauteng accounted for the most number of birth registrations across all age groups except teenagers at 20,9%, followed by KwaZulu-Natal (20,4%), while the Northern Cape and Free State registered the lowest number at 2,6% 5,1% respectively.
The Eastern Cape produced the most number of birth registrations to teenage mothers (aged 10–14), followed by KwaZulu-Natal.
The most popular first names for males were Enzokuhle, followed by Lethabo and Melokuhle, the three names that were also the top three names for 2017 births in that same order. Junior was the most popular middle name, followed by Blessing and Gift.
The three most popular first names for females were Enzokuhle, Melokuhle and Amahle, the same order as in 2017. Precious, Princess and Angel were the most popular middle names. Enzokuhle, Melokuhle, Omphile and Amogelang were in the top ten list of names for both sexes.
“All the top ten first names for both sexes were of native languages. Most of the popular baby names for males and females reflect positive hopes for the child, express beliefs or are inspired by positive connotations of both love and acceptance.
“Nationally, the most prevalent surname for both sexes was Dlamini, followed by Nkosi and then Ndlovu. It is interesting to note that nine of the surnames were from the Nguni clans, namely isiZulu, isiXhosa, isiNdebele and siSwati. Mokoena – which featured as the sixth most popular surname – was the only non-Nguni surname,” concluded Stats SA.
(Compiled by Vhahangwele Nemakonde)
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