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Flower and Nature Baby Names Loved in Aotearoa

From kōwhai in September to pōhutukawa at Christmas, Aotearoa gives parents an unusually rich set of nature names. Here are the botanical and landscape names showing up in the registration data.

Nature names in the data

  1. 01Hazel
    314 babies a year
  2. 02Koa
    222 babies a year
  3. 03Nikau
    216 babies a year
  4. 04River
    196 babies a year
  5. 05Sage
    159 babies a year
  6. 06Wren
    89 babies a year
  7. 07Kōwhai
    60 babies a year

About this data: figures come from Department of Internal Affairs birth registrations for 1954-2025. The DIA only publishes a name for a given year when at least 10 babies were registered with it, so rarer names - and rarer spellings - are missing entirely, and a name can drop out of the record in quieter years. Spelling variants are counted separately, and counts reflect first names as registered.

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