There's no single number for "how many names" exist in Australia, but it involves millions of unique personal names, thousands of common surnames (like Smith, Jones, Williams), and many thousands of common names for flora/fauna (over 13,000 for ~4,500 species) alongside official ones, with some names banned by Births, Deaths, and Marriages (BDM) for being too long, numerical, or offensive.
The #1 most popular name depends on the region and year, but globally, Muhammad is often cited as the most common male name, while in recent years for newborns in places like the US, UK, and Australia, Olivia (girls) and Noah or Oliver (boys) consistently rank at the top.
Some Australian favorites, like Bindi, Colbee, Hamish, Lachlan, and Mirri offer a fresh alternative to the more common names found in the US. These distinctive choices allow parents to embrace individuality and tradition.
After Dutch navigators charted the northern, western and southern coasts of Australia during the 17th Century this newly found continent became known as 'New Holland'. It was the English explorer Matthew Flinders who suggested the name we use today.
"The U.S. Census Bureau statistics tell us that there are at least 151,671 different last names and 5,163 different first names in common use in the United States. Some names are more common than others," according to the website's homepage.
and the most rare, the most uncommon name that anybody has is Rome. with only 208 babies with that name.
Yes, there is a woman known for having a name with over 1,000 letters, famously featured on The Oprah Winfrey Show in 1997; her full name is Rhoshandiatellyneshiaunneveshenk Koyaanisquatsiuth Williams, but she goes by "Jamie" for simplicity, and her name was recorded as 1,019 letters long. Her mother gave her the name to make her unique and break the Guinness World Record, with the name containing parts of family names, places, and terms like "love" and "friend".
At the beginning of the 17th century Dutch explorers began to uncover the secrets of the Australian continent. Willem Jansz and his crew of the Duyfken made history in 1606 by being the first recorded Europeans to set foot on Australian soil at the Pennefather River on Cape York Peninsula.
There were so many different tribes that there wouldn't be one single name. In a lot of the Dreamtime stories that have survived, individual islands have been named, but Australia as a whole tended to be referred to as "the land", rather than having a name.
It was gazetted on 4 November 2010 by the Government of South Australia as "Mamungkukumpurangkuntjunya" without the word "hill". The name is the longest official place name in Australia.
In Australian slang, "dog" has multiple meanings, most commonly referring to a snitch, informer, or untrustworthy person (a "dog act" is a betrayal), but can also mean a mate/friend ("big dog") or describe a worthless object like a broken-down car, while "dag" is a term for a quirky or unfashionable person, and "coppa dog" means an undercover cop.
There's no single "top 5" rarest names, as rarity depends on location and year, but examples of exceptionally uncommon names from recent lists include Yoshiaki, Faber, Wicahpi, Jahziel, Zillion, and names like Babyboy, often appearing with fewer than five uses in a state, highlighting unique, culturally specific, or surname-style names. These names are rare because they might be highly specific cultural gems (Wicahpi), surname-turned-first-names (Faber, Wylder), or simply new, modern creations (Zillion).
Below you'll find some of the trendiest strong male names in the United States.
The number one girl name varies by location and year, but Olivia, Charlotte, and Amelia are consistently at the top in the U.S. and Australia for recent years, while Isla and Evelyn have claimed the top spots in other regions like the UK and Canberra for 2025 data.
Top 10 Trending Indian Boy Names 2026
The number one boys' name depends on the region, but Liam and Noah consistently rank at the top in the U.S. (with Liam often first), while Oliver and Noah are popular in Australia and the UK, sometimes swapping spots, and Muhammad is also extremely popular globally, notes BabyCenter UK, The Memo, What to Expect and Social Security Administration. For the most recent US data, the Social Security Administration lists Liam as #1, followed by Noah, Oliver, and Theodore.
Yes, "Koori" (or Koorie/Goori) is an appropriate regional term for Aboriginal people from southeastern Australia (NSW/Victoria), but it's always best to ask an individual their preference or use broader terms like "Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander" or "First Nations people" if you're unsure, as "Koori" is specific to a region and not all Indigenous Australians identify with it. Using specific nation names (like Wiradjuri, Gunditjmara) is even better if known, but "Koori" is a respectful, reclaiming term for its specific area.
"Straya" is a colloquial, affectionate, and humorous slang term for Australia, representing a shortened, phonetic pronunciation of the country's name, often used in a casual context to show national identity and a laid-back attitude. It embodies the Australian tendency to shorten words and can be heard in phrases like "G'day, Straya!".
Isolated cases of white (in fact, albino) Aboriginal people haunted the public imagination and supported—both scientifically and politically—efforts to biologically absorb and socially assimilate Indigenous people into the majority-European population, most infamously through the mass child removal now known as the ...
The Australian genome clusters together with Highland Papua New Guinea (PNG) samples and is thus positioned roughly between South and East Asians. Apart from the neighboring Bougainville Papuans, the closest populations to the Aboriginal Australian are the Munda speakers of India and the Aeta from the Philippines (Fig.
The oldest town in Australia, in terms of European settlement, is generally considered to be George Town, Tasmania, founded in 1803, though older settlements like Sydney (1788) and Parramatta (1788) are older cities, with Bathurst (1815) being the oldest inland settlement, and oldest Aboriginal sites like Madjedbebe (around 65,000 years old) predate all European arrivals by tens of thousands of years.
More than 80% of our plants, mammals, reptiles and frogs are unique to Australia and are found nowhere else in the world. Some of our Australian animals are very well known like kangaroos, dingos, wallabies and wombats and of course the koala, platypus and echidna.
Global gems – rare girl names from around the world
Laurence Watkins (Australia) has the longest personal name of 2,253 unique words 😱
Since 1924, Mary has taken the crown for girl's names, topping the list 32 times.