Most Popular Baby Boy Names in Brazil 2025 (Arpen-Brasil) and Their Meanings

In 2025 the most common first name given to baby boys in Brazil was no longer Miguel. The new leader is Ravi: according to civil registry data from Arpen-Brasil, 23,418 babies were registered with the name during the year. Miguel slipped to second place with 23,192 registrations, just 226 behind. In every year of our 2021–2024 data, Miguel had been the top boys' name.

In the overall list, where girls' and boys' names are ranked together, first place again goes to a girl's name: Helena (30,379 registrations). Ravi is second overall and Miguel third.

Before you read: three notes on the Brazilian list

1. The list is mixed; the split by sex is ours. Arpen-Brasil publishes a single national top 50 each year that ranks girls' and boys' names together; there is no separate boys' list. The boys' ranking below was produced by separating the boys' names in that top 50 while keeping their order, so it is not an official "boys' ranking". The 2025 top 50 contains 26 boys' names and 24 girls' names. For each name, the table gives both its position among boys and its overall rank.
2. The figures are registrations. They count birth registrations made at cartórios (civil registry offices) during the calendar year. Because the registration date is what counts, late registrations may be included.
3. First names only; the accents are ours. The list covers single first names; compound names are counted separately. The official data strips accents (BENICIO, JOSE); in the table we use the usual Portuguese spelling (Benício, José).

The most popular boys' names in Brazil in 2025

The table includes all 26 boys' names in the 2025 overall top 50. The Abjad value is the sum of the plain letter values in the name's established Arabic-script spelling. For a Portuguese name, the Arabic spelling is usually a transcription of its sound, which is why we also look at the traditional forms further down.

From 2024 to 2025: a change at the top

Ravi's first place did not come out of nowhere. In our five years of data the name started at 12th among boys and climbed every single year, while Miguel's registrations fell every year. The ranks in this table are positions among boys' names.

In one year, 1,638 more babies were given the name Ravi and 1,497 fewer were given the name Miguel. The other main moves in the list:

• Steepest fall among the boys' names in the top 50 in both years: Gael. Second in 2024, Gael dropped to sixth; 4,753 fewer babies were given the name (21,970 → 17,217). Noah (2,874 fewer) and Theo (2,395 fewer) also fell clearly; Noah is now last in the boys' top 10.
• Strongest rise among the boys' names in the top 50 in both years: Levi. 3,057 more babies were named Levi (+33.1%), and the name moved from 16th to 12th. Benício, with 2,040 more babies, rose from 12th to 9th and entered the boys' top 10.
• Standing still, moving up: Arthur. Arthur gained only 23 registrations, yet climbed from 6th to 4th because Gael and Theo fell back.
• New in the top 50: Vicente, José and Leonardo. None of the three was in the overall top 50 in our 2021–2024 data.
• Left the top 50: Lorenzo (20th among boys in 2024), Benjamin and Lucca are not in the 2025 overall top 50, so their 2025 positions are unknown.

Portuguese spelling, traditional form: one name, two numbers

Many names on the list are Portuguese forms of names that have a traditional Arabic or Qur'anic form. Since Abjad works with Arabic letters, not Latin ones, the form you start from changes the result directly. The value in the main table comes from a sound-based Arabic transcription of the Portuguese name; below we compare it with the name's traditional Arabic form.

Davi is the Brazilian Portuguese form of the name of the prophet Dawud (David), who is named in the Qur'an. Miguel and Gabriel correspond to the two angels mentioned together in verse 98 of Surah al-Baqarah, Mikail and Jibril. In the Qur'anic text (Hafs reading) the angel's name is written ميكال (Mikal), 101; the common Arabic form is ميكائيل (Mikail), 121. José is the Portuguese form of Joseph, that is, of the prophet Yusuf, after whom the 12th surah of the Qur'an is named. Isaac is already written إسحاق (170), the name of the prophet Ishaq in the Qur'an. Levi's counterpart appears in the Torah, not in the Qur'an.

The gap can be very large. The letter غ in Miguel's spelling is worth 1000 on its own, so the same name can be 1090, 121 or 101 depending on the spelling. With Noah the difference is only 2: نواه (62) versus نوح (64). Neither spelling is "luckier" than the other, but the first decision in any Abjad analysis is which spelling to use.

The 2025 boys' list through the lens of Abjad

• First letters of the top 10: Under the classical classification used in our reports (some authors order the elements differently), three names begin with a Fire letter (Miguel م, Heitor ه, Arthur آ), three with an Earth letter (Ravi ر, Gael غ, Davi د) and three with an Air letter (Bernardo ب, Benício ب, Noah ن). The only name beginning with a Water letter is Theo (ث).
• Highest values: Gabriel 1253, Miguel 1090 and Gael 1041. In all three spellings the Portuguese g sound is rendered with غ (1000).
• Lowest values: Noah 62 and Davi 95.
• No shared values: all 26 names have different Abjad values. The closest pair is Theo (516) and Anthony (517).
• The name at the top: Ravi = ر (200) + ا (1) + ف (80) + ي (10) = 291.

The origins are telling too: according to name dictionaries, 10 of the names are of Hebrew origin (and José is a form of the Hebrew-derived Joseph), while Ravi at number one is Sanskrit. There is no name of Arabic origin on the list, but Davi, Miguel, Gabriel, Noah, Isaac and José each have a counterpart in the Qur'an.

A name's Abjad value on its own is not an analysis. In the Abjad tradition, the real question is how that number fits together with the parents' names. A child's star reading (yıldızname) is also calculated together with the mother's name, so the same name Ravi can point to a different sign and element for the children of different mothers.

Source: Arpen-Brasil (National Association of Registrars of Natural Persons), Portal da Transparência do Registro Civil – most registered first names in 2025; comparisons from the same source's 2021–2024 data. The split by sex and the accented spellings were added by the compiler.

Note: Name meanings are based on common name dictionaries; Arabic spellings may vary by source. Abjad values and element interpretations are for information in line with the Abjad tradition and imply no certainty or guarantee.