Names of Greece GR

ELSTAT — population given names (2021) records Μαρία as the commonest given name in Greece; the names that most distinguish Greece from the rest of the world are John, Παναγιωτης and Smith.

Written in Greek.

Population
11M
Official registers
2
Name forms recorded
51K
BBuilt from 2 official registers (2021), 51,040 name forms in our corpus.

At least one official register, plus a written account of the naming system.

fewerlarger share
Where the names most characteristic of Greece are borne outside it — the same spelling, counted in our record corpus. Shares are of all bearers of those names anywhere, Greece included.

How names work in Greece

Names in Greece follow one naming tradition. Its structure, its given-name and surname stock, how to address someone and what trips software up are set out on its own page.

The most common names in Greece

Counts everyone resident in the country · authority tier 2
ELSTAT — population given names, 2021 — 20 given names counted over residents, girls only, as the register publishes them.
#NameBearers recordedOur rank
1Μαρία426K—
2Ελένη273K—
3Αικατερίνη196K—
4Βασιλική162K—
5Αναστασία120K—
6Παναγιώτα——
7Ειρήνη——
8Αγγελική——
9Γεωργία——
10Δήμητρα——
11Άννα——
12Ιωάννα——
13Κωνσταντίνα——
14Σοφία——
15Παρασκευή——
16Χριστίνα——
17Σταυρούλα——
18Δέσποινα——
19Καλλιόπη——
20Αλεξάνδρα——

Where the two lists disagree

20 of ELSTAT — population given names's top 20 given names sit five or more places away in our record corpus. Neither ranking is wrong; they count different people.

ELSTAT — population given names 2021Across all recordsμαρία: 1 → not ranked · not in our corpus’s top ranks for this country1. μαρίαnot rankedελένη: 2 → not ranked · not in our corpus’s top ranks for this country2. ελένηnot rankedαικατερίνη: 3 → not ranked · not in our corpus’s top ranks for this country3. αικατερίνηnot rankedβασιλική: 4 → not ranked · not in our corpus’s top ranks for this country4. βασιλικήnot rankedαναστασία: 5 → not ranked · not in our corpus’s top ranks for this country5. αναστασίαnot rankedπαναγιώτα: 6 → not ranked · not in our corpus’s top ranks for this country6. παναγιώταnot rankedειρήνη: 7 → not ranked · not in our corpus’s top ranks for this country7. ειρήνηnot rankedαγγελική: 8 → not ranked · not in our corpus’s top ranks for this country8. αγγελικήnot rankedγεωργία: 9 → not ranked · not in our corpus’s top ranks for this country9. γεωργίαnot rankedδήμητρα: 10 → not ranked · not in our corpus’s top ranks for this country10. δήμητραnot rankedάννα: 11 → not ranked · not in our corpus’s top ranks for this country11. άνναnot rankedιωάννα: 12 → not ranked · not in our corpus’s top ranks for this country12. ιωάνναnot rankedκωνσταντίνα: 13 → not ranked · not in our corpus’s top ranks for this country13. κωνσταντίναnot rankedσοφία: 14 → not ranked · not in our corpus’s top ranks for this country14. σοφίαnot rankedπαρασκευή: 15 → not ranked · not in our corpus’s top ranks for this country15. παρασκευήnot rankedχριστίνα: 16 → not ranked · not in our corpus’s top ranks for this country16. χριστίναnot rankedσταυρούλα: 17 → not ranked · not in our corpus’s top ranks for this country17. σταυρούλαnot rankedδέσποινα: 18 → not ranked · not in our corpus’s top ranks for this country18. δέσποιναnot rankedκαλλιόπη: 19 → not ranked · not in our corpus’s top ranks for this country19. καλλιόπηnot rankedαλεξάνδρα: 20 → not ranked · not in our corpus’s top ranks for this country20. αλεξάνδραnot ranked
Hover a line for what is available to explain that row.
ELSTAT — population given names, 2021 on the left; every record we hold for Greece on the right. A dashed line means the name is not in our top ranks for this country at all.

The register counts one population in one year — everyone it enumerates, once. Our corpus counts records: historical registers going back decades, the diaspora, business and place records, and several generations of births. A name that was common two generations ago outranks a name common today; a name whose spelling scatters across sources (diacritics dropped, transliterated differently) loses ground, because only its dominant spelling is ranked.

Characteristic of Greece

Not the most common names — the most distinctive ones. A name appears here when Greece holds a larger share of its bearers than the world does, weighted by how much of the country's whole name distribution it accounts for.

ΤουΚαιGreeceJohnΠαναγιωτηςΑθανασιουCreteΔημητριοςRobertΓεωργιοςΒασιλειοςDavidΕυαγγελουWilliamΕμμανουηλΧρηστοςAnnΚωνσταντινοςRichardΑναστασιου
Sized by how much of the difference between Greece's name distribution and the world's this name accounts for. Hover for its share here against its share worldwide.(measured from records)

Scripts & spelling

Names in Greece are written in Latin (50%) and Greek (50%), measured over the spellings our corpus records for this country.

Τουgiven name(measured from records)Tou
Spartasurname(measured from records)
Johngiven name(measured from records)
Γεωργιοςgiven name(measured from records)George
Marygiven name(measured from records)
The best-attested names in Greece, in the spelling our records use there. Where a Latin spelling is also attested it is shown beneath — a spelling from the corpus, not a machine romanisation.

Countries whose names look alike

Measured as the overlap between each country's top 300 given-name forms, weighted by how common each is — the fuzzy-set approach of Lauc (2024), on a truncated inventory.

Registers & sources

Official registers

About this data

Official figures are reproduced from the register named beside them, at the year named beside them, and are never combined across registers. The "across all records" ranking counts records in our own corpus — historical registers, the diaspora, business and place records — and is not a population count. Bearer estimates are omitted where a name accounts for more than a quarter of a country's records, because the estimate is not defensible there. Names listed by reference works and licensed name dictionaries are cited as attesting a name; their figures are not published.

Data snapshot: 2026-10-09.

Questions

What is the most common given name in Greece?
Μαρία, according to ELSTAT — population given names (2021), with 426,312 bearers recorded among girls.
Why do sources disagree about the commonest name in Greece?
Because they count different people. ELSTAT — population given names (2021) counts one population once, and its commonest given name is Μαρία. Our corpus counts every record we hold — historical registers, the diaspora, decades of births — and its commonest is John. Both are on this page, each with its denominator.

Cite this page: Mondonomo, “Names of Greece”, https://mondonomo.ai/names/GR (data snapshot 2026-10-09). Official figures from ELSTAT — population given names.