Olivia's Reign Is Over: Charlotte Is Canada's New #1 Baby Name
Fresh 2025 data from Statistics Canada dethrones a name that ruled for 13 of the last 16 years — while a wave of Victorian classics hit all-time highs, and a '90s icon disappears from the list completely.
Naymt Research · September 24, 2026
Every year, Statistics Canada quietly updates its record of what Canadians are naming their children. The 2025 numbers just landed, and after the longest run in the dataset's 35-year history, Olivia is no longer Canada's #1 girl's name.
Key Finding
Charlotte didn't overtake Olivia because it had a bigger year -- it had 1,502 births in 2025 to Olivia's 1,445. Olivia's own numbers fell faster. The crown changed hands by a margin of just 57 births.
The Changing of the Guard
Since 2010, Olivia has held Canada's #1 girl's-name spot in 13 of 16 years, interrupted only twice — by Emma in 2012 and again in 2015. It's the longest run in the 35 years Statistics Canada has published this data (Jessica held #1 for six straight years in the early '90s before Sarah, then Emma, took over). In 2025, the streak ends — and not because Olivia collapsed. Its births actually dropped less than most; Charlotte, which climbed steadily from #3 (2023) to #2 (2024) to #1 (2025), edged it out by just 57 births (1,502 vs. 1,445) in a year when both names cooled slightly.
The boys' side already had its changing of the guard: Noah just logged its fifth straight year at #1 (2021–2025), continuing directly from Liam's own nine-year run (2012–2020). Between them, Noah and Liam have owned the #1 boy's spot in Canada for 14 consecutive years.
The Name That Disappeared
Not every name gets a graceful decline. Brittany was Canada's #9 girl's name in 1991 — 1,909 babies, or about 1 in every 92 girls born that year. In the newly released 2025 data, it isn't on the list at all. Its last recorded year was 2024, with just 8 births nationwide — a 99.6% collapse from its peak. Statistics Canada stops publishing any name below 5 births in a year for privacy, and Brittany has apparently crossed that line for good. It's a near-perfect Canadian cousin of the "Karen effect".
Courtney is following the same script: #17 in 1996 with 1,054 births, down to rank 2,730 with just 7 births in the new 2025 numbers. Not extinct yet — but close.
Fresh Personal Bests, Straight Out of the New Data
The 2025 release isn't only about decline. Comparing every year back to 1991, at least 15 names hit their highest-ever Canadian rank specifically in this year's release: Charlotte (#1), Theodore (#2), Nora (#10), Henry (#11), Violet (#12), Adam (#13), Arthur (#14), Theo (#15), Eliana (#17), Muhammad (#20), Hudson and Hazel (tied #23), Eleanor and Louis (tied #28), and Aurora and Elijah (tied #29).
The pattern is hard to miss: outside of Muhammad's steady 35-year climb to its best-ever showing, nearly every name on that list is a Victorian-era or literary classic — Theodore, Henry, Arthur, Eleanor, Louis, Hazel, Aurora — all peaking in the same year, more than a century after they first fell out of fashion. And then there's Theo: ranked #966 in 1991, barely registering, it spent three decades climbing before finally cracking the top 15 in 2025 — the slow-burn opposite of Brittany's crash.
Patterns Observed
Outside of Muhammad's steady 35-year climb, nearly every name hitting its all-time-best Canadian rank in 2025 is a Victorian-era or literary classic -- Theodore, Henry, Arthur, Eleanor, Louis, Hazel, Aurora -- all peaking in the same year, more than a century after they first fell out of fashion. It's the same tier-loyalty pattern seen in the fallen names: parents don't abandon a style, entire cohorts of names rise and fall together.
About Our Data
Naymt analyzed Statistics Canada Table 17100147 (Frequency of Canadian baby names by year of birth, 1991 to 2025), covering both genders across all provinces. Rank history, all-time-best-rank, and #1-name streaks were computed across the full 35-year series; StatCan suppresses any name with fewer than 5 births in a given year for privacy, which is the threshold Brittany appears to have crossed by 2025.
Please cite Naymt when referencing this data in your piece.
