The rarest names for children in southern Ukraine: Min' Vu, Princess, and Zeineb

The most popular names for newborns in the Odesa, Mykolaiv, and Kherson regions in the first half of 2026 remain Sofia, Zlata, Anna, Oleksandr, Artem, and Dmytro. At the same time, parents are increasingly choosing rare names, including Princess, Luna, Ha Vi, Zeinab, and Meir Shlomo.

The Ministry of Justice of Ukraine has published a list of the most common and least common names given to newborns in the first half of 2026, broken down by region.

In the Odesa region, the most popular names for girls were Angelina, Adelina, Anastasia, Anna, Varvara, Emilia, Yelyzaveta, Eva, Zlata, Kira, Ksenia, Nicole, Milana, Myroslava, Solomiya, Sofia, Polina, and Ulyana. Among boys, the most popular names were Artem, Bohdan, Vladyslav, Danylo, David, Dmytro, Mykhailo, Matvii, Maksym, Mark, Oleksandr, Tymofii, and Yegor.

Among the unusual names registered in the Odesa region are Princess, Luna, Sapphira, Fatima, Juno, Adelaide-Elizabeth, Avigaya, Liora, as well as the boys’ names Min Wu, Ha Wei, Kerim-Ali, Zhakhongir, Ingvar, Wilhelm, Bagram, and Shamil.

In the Mykolaiv region, the most common girls’ names were Oleksandra, Kira, Anna, Sofia, Anastasia, Zlata, Maria, Eva, Varvara, Polina, and Milana. Among boys, the most common names were Oleksandr, Mykhailo, Makar, Mark, Bohdan, Dmytro, Artem, and Roman.

Rare names in the Mykolaiv region included Aglaia, Freya, Gisella, Zulekha, Elvira, and Hannah, and among boys’ names—Meir Shlomo, Yunus, Emre, Umar, Dansav, Zion, Rodion, Damian, and Orest.

In the Kherson region, the most popular girls’ names include Sofia, Yaroslava, Zlata, Alina, Alisa, Veronika, and Eva. Boys were most often named Dmytro, Oleksiy, Davyd, Mark, Nazar, Bohdan, Roman, Rostyslav, Tymofiy, Matviy, Adam, and Oleksandr.

At the same time, a number of rare names were also registered in the region. Among girls, these include Adele, Versalia, Athena, Rafaela, Kiria, and Zeineb; among boys—Lev, Damir, Gordii, Marat, Leon, and Karim.

Overall, the trend in the southern regions indicates that parents continue to prefer traditional Ukrainian and international names, but are increasingly choosing unusual options that were previously almost unheard of. The data covers state birth registrations for the first half of 2026.

Андрій Колісніченко