The most popular man's name in Latvian is
Jānis, followed by Andris, Juris, Edgars, Māris and Aivars. The most popular women's names are
Anna, Kristīne, Marija, Inese, Inga and Ilze. Fashions in personal names tend to change, so that new, modern names come into use, while old, long-forgotten names may reappear. Yet some centuries-old names continue to stand the test of time: Kārlis, Ilze, Pēteris, Anna, Juris, etc. The majority of Latvian names are local variants of European Christian names, while many others have been borrowed from neighbouring peoples, and about ten percent are unique to the Latvians, for example Irbe, Sniedze, Viesturs, Dzintars, Auseklis. Many of these Latvian names represent animals or aspects of nature, such as amber, star, snow or a bird species. Visvaldis, for example, means ‘all-ruler'.
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