The names of Lionel, Ronaldo and Kylian are sweeping the “obsessed continent”

In South America, the football-mad continent, the intensity of passion reaches the point of naming children soccer stars, with consistent patterns despite preferences varying from one country to another.
In Ecuador, as in many countries in the region, the names of Neymar, Kylian, Lionel and Ronaldo are at the forefront, according to what the Civil Registry reported on Wednesday.
This country, which is competing in its fifth World Cup final, includes 3,847 children named Neymar, after Brazil’s all-time top scorer.
Between 2018 and 2026, more than 2,800 families chose the name Kylian, named after the captain of the French national team who won the 2018 World Cup, Kylian Mbappe.
The name James, named after neighboring Colombia’s striker James Rodriguez, ranked third among football-related names with 2,136 registrations.
The Civil Registry indicated in a statement that “the influence of the most prominent international football stars and Ecuadorian symbols went beyond the green rectangles and became a source of inspiration when choosing a child’s name.”
The names of international stars, despite their approaching forty and their relatively declining performance, are still strongly present: Argentine Lionel Messi and Portuguese Cristiano Ronaldo, with 1,549 instances of the name Lionel and 38 of the name Messi, in addition to 178 Cristiano and 1,006 Ronaldo.
The names of local stars also appear, such as Kendry Paes (1,985 times) and Willian Pacho (1,693 times), the French defender of Paris Saint-Germain who won the Champions League twice.
In Argentina, the country that holds the World Cup title, the name Lionel witnessed a boom in 2023 and became the second most popular name in the year following the coronation in Qatar.
Since then, the fever has subsided, although Lionel will remain in ninth place in 2024. Despite the continued attachment to his legendary compatriot Diego Maradona (who died in 2020), Diego’s name has not been among the top 20 for more than a decade.
In Brazil, without surprise, Neymar’s name remains the most prominent, as it was used 2,443 times according to the 2022 census (with an average age of 11 years).
Names such as Kylian also appear (220 times), and the name of Vinicius (392 thousand times), the Spanish Real Madrid star, is widespread in Brazil, beyond football.
As for Colombia, in 2022, it registered about 152 children named Lionel or Messi, 836 named Kylian or Mbappe, 220 named Cristiano or Ronaldo, in addition to 269 children named Neymar.
In Chile in 2022, before the Qatar World Cup, the Ciampi family attracted attention on local television programs after naming their newborn “Griezmann Mbappe.” It is a family passionate about football, as some relatives bear the names of Lionel, Neymar Ronaldo, or Andres Iniesta, the retired Spanish player.
The Ecuadorian Civil Registry indicated that “it is possible that new names inspired by the stars of this World Cup will appear in the statistics in the coming years.”
In the future, the records may witness the proliferation of names such as Lamine (Jamal, Spain), Ousmane (Dembélé, France), Michael (Olysée, France), Harry (Caen, England) or Vitinha (Portugal).