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Brazilian baby names: the 1980s
Every Brazilian generation carries the names of its era, and the 1980s tell their own version of that story. 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 915,119 Brazilians, and Jose comes first among boys, with 656,217. 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 1980s
| # | Name | People |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Maria | 915,119 |
| 2 | Ana | 527,853 |
| 3 | Juliana | 228,462 |
| 4 | Patricia | 207,130 |
| 5 | Adriana | 194,165 |
| 6 | Aline | 192,341 |
| 7 | Fernanda | 189,019 |
| 8 | Vanessa | 178,488 |
| 9 | Luciana | 163,084 |
| 10 | Cristiane | 143,484 |
| 11 | Fabiana | 142,240 |
| 12 | Renata | 139,045 |
| 13 | Marcia | 126,613 |
| 14 | Simone | 126,071 |
| 15 | Camila | 122,302 |
| 16 | Daniela | 112,553 |
| 17 | Priscila | 110,973 |
| 18 | Andreia | 109,375 |
| 19 | Tatiane | 107,903 |
| 20 | Carla | 107,261 |
Boys' top 20 of the 1980s
| # | Name | People |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jose | 656,217 |
| 2 | Antonio | 298,400 |
| 3 | Francisco | 284,500 |
| 4 | Joao | 272,896 |
| 5 | Carlos | 269,761 |
| 6 | Rafael | 260,615 |
| 7 | Paulo | 258,522 |
| 8 | Rodrigo | 249,274 |
| 9 | Marcos | 240,584 |
| 10 | Fabio | 235,431 |
| 11 | Leandro | 223,381 |
| 12 | Marcelo | 207,003 |
| 13 | Tiago | 201,378 |
| 14 | Andre | 190,123 |
| 15 | Anderson | 179,572 |
| 16 | Bruno | 171,357 |
| 17 | Daniel | 170,233 |
| 18 | Fernando | 167,744 |
| 19 | Diego | 157,845 |
| 20 | Marcio | 145,587 |
What the 1980s changed
Against the previous decade, in the girls' top 20, Juliana, Aline, Fernanda, Vanessa, Fabiana, Renata, Camila, Daniela, Priscila, Tatiane and Carla made their debuts, pushing out Sandra, Claudia, Francisca, Eliane, Rosangela, Antonia, Andrea, Silvana, Alessandra, Elaine and Sonia; on the boys' side, Rafael, Rodrigo, Leandro, Tiago, Anderson, Bruno, Daniel, Fernando and Diego made their debuts, pushing out Luiz, Alexandre, Luis, Luciano, Ricardo, Claudio, Edson, Roberto and Sergio.
Patricia made the biggest climb among girls, from rank 8 to 4; Fabio made the biggest climb among boys, from rank 12 to 10.
The margin at the top says a lot: Maria was registered 1.7 times as often as Ana, the second girls' name, a narrower gap than the previous decade (3.8); among boys, Jose ran 2.2 times ahead of Antonio, in the same range as the previous decade.
Compare with the 1970s, when Maria and Jose led, and with the 1990s, which crowned Maria and Lucas. 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