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Brazilian baby names: the 1970s
Anyone born in Brazil in the 1970s has a good chance of answering to one of the names on this page. In the open data of IBGE, Brazil's national statistics institute, collected in the 2010 Census, Maria leads among girls born in that decade, with 1,612,041 Brazilians, and Jose comes first among boys, with 938,890. The tables below list each sex's top 20 with the official frequencies, and the analysis that follows shows what changed from the previous decade.
Girls' top 20 of the 1970s
| # | Name | People |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Maria | 1,612,041 |
| 2 | Ana | 420,682 |
| 3 | Adriana | 246,444 |
| 4 | Marcia | 204,014 |
| 5 | Sandra | 177,434 |
| 6 | Luciana | 174,334 |
| 7 | Claudia | 153,752 |
| 8 | Patricia | 152,072 |
| 9 | Simone | 142,582 |
| 10 | Andreia | 117,478 |
| 11 | Francisca | 115,269 |
| 12 | Cristiane | 115,232 |
| 13 | Eliane | 112,720 |
| 14 | Rosangela | 108,739 |
| 15 | Antonia | 94,600 |
| 16 | Andrea | 87,730 |
| 17 | Silvana | 85,056 |
| 18 | Alessandra | 81,350 |
| 19 | Elaine | 78,925 |
| 20 | Sonia | 74,587 |
Boys' top 20 of the 1970s
| # | Name | People |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jose | 938,890 |
| 2 | Antonio | 420,186 |
| 3 | Francisco | 297,931 |
| 4 | Joao | 279,445 |
| 5 | Paulo | 274,120 |
| 6 | Carlos | 257,739 |
| 7 | Marcos | 255,601 |
| 8 | Marcelo | 224,408 |
| 9 | Marcio | 180,126 |
| 10 | Luiz | 145,861 |
| 11 | Alexandre | 145,239 |
| 12 | Fabio | 133,136 |
| 13 | Luis | 131,449 |
| 14 | Luciano | 125,953 |
| 15 | Andre | 123,951 |
| 16 | Ricardo | 120,118 |
| 17 | Claudio | 119,866 |
| 18 | Edson | 111,230 |
| 19 | Roberto | 107,991 |
| 20 | Sergio | 107,342 |
What the 1970s changed
Against the previous decade, in the girls' top 20, Adriana, Luciana, Patricia, Simone, Andreia, Cristiane, Eliane, Andrea, Silvana, Alessandra and Elaine made their debuts, pushing out Vera, Rita, Lucia, Marlene, Aparecida, Sueli, Marli, Regina, Rosa, Fatima and Tania; on the boys' side, Marcio, Alexandre, Fabio, Luciano, Andre and Ricardo made their debuts, pushing out Raimundo, Pedro, Jorge, Manoel, Sebastiao and Geraldo.
Claudia made the biggest climb among girls, from rank 15 to 7; Marcelo made the biggest climb among boys, from rank 20 to 8.
The margin at the top says a lot: Maria was registered 3.8 times as often as Ana, the second girls' name, a narrower gap than the previous decade (8.5); among boys, Jose ran 2.2 times ahead of Antonio, a narrower gap than the previous decade (2.3).
Compare with the 1960s, when Maria and Jose led, and with the 1980s, which crowned Maria and Jose. The archive The names of Brazil shows the whole timeline at once.
Source: IBGE (Brazil's national statistics institute), 2010 Census, open data. The numbers come from the 2010 Demographic Census and count people alive and living in Brazil that year, grouped by their decade of birth: the oldest decades reflect only those who made it to 2010. Everything here is aggregate public statistics, with no individual records. Snapshot of 2026-07-10.
Last updated: · Methodology and sources