Most Popular Baby Boy Names in Japan 2025 (Meiji Yasuda) and Their Meanings

The name spelling given most often to baby boys born in Japan in 2025 was 湊. Usually read Minato, this single kanji means "harbour". In the annual name survey by the life insurer Meiji Yasuda, 湊 came first with 38 babies in a sample of 6,312 boys. According to the company, it is the first time the name has reached the top; in 2024 it was 15th.

Three points matter before reading the list. First, this is not official data: Japan has no government-published national list of baby names, and the most widely quoted ranking is this survey of babies in families holding Meiji Yasuda policies. Second, 2025 births do not cover the whole year; the survey includes children added to policies up to about September 2025. Third, the counts describe the sample only, not the whole country: 38 does not mean "38 babies in Japan".

Spelling or reading? The Haruto puzzle

In Japanese names the same sound can be written with many different kanji, and the same kanji can be read in more than one way. That is why Meiji Yasuda publishes two separate rankings, one by spelling and one by reading. The main table in this article is the spelling ranking.

Haruto shows the difference best. In the reading ranking, Haruto is first in every year of the 2021–2025 data we have; in 2025, 110 boys in the sample received it. Yet only 21 of those 110 are written 陽翔; the rest are spread over other spellings such as 遥斗, 晴斗 and 陽斗. So 陽翔, the top spelling of 2024, sits 8th in 2025 with 23 babies. Of those 23, 21 are read Haruto; the others have a different reading. Of the 98 boys named Minato, the second reading, 34 are written 湊 and 19 湊斗. In short, a spelling's rank also depends on how many ways its sound is split. And of the 38 babies spelled 湊, 34 are read Minato and 4 Sō, a detail we return to in the Abjad section.

Top 30 boys' names in 2025 (by kanji spelling)

Because tied names share a rank, this year's "top 30" holds 35 spellings. The reading column gives the most common reading in hiragana and in Latin letters (Hepburn). Meiji Yasuda's spelling list does not include readings; readings marked with an asterisk (*) could not be confirmed from the company's published reading data and are likely readings based on dictionary sources. For those rows the Abjad value also depends on that reading: if the name is read differently, the value changes. The meaning column gives the meaning of each kanji; all names in the list are of Japanese origin.

The Abjad value is calculated from the Japanese reading written in Arabic letters (an established Arabic transcription where one exists, otherwise a spelling by sound). The kanji and its meaning do not enter the calculation; the sound decides the number.

From 2024 to 2025: how the ranks moved

Sample sizes for earlier years are not published, so comparing baby counts year on year would be misleading; ranks are the safer guide.

• Biggest jump in the top 30, 伊織 (Iori): from 36th to 2nd, up 34 places. Meiji Yasuda calls it a traditional name and explains 伊 as "to guide" and 織 as "to weave, to bring together". It was 11th in 2021.
• Other strong climbers: 藍 (Ran) 40 → 8, 朔 (Saku) 22 → 6, 琉生 (Rui) 14 → 4, 空 (Sora) 50 → 25.
• Absent from 2024's list of about 100 names but now in the top 30: 仁 (19th), plus 翠, 律希 and 颯太 (30th).
• Fallers still in the top 30: 陽翔 1 → 8, 凪 (Nagi) 2 → 14, 暖 4 → 14, 律 6 → 20 and, the steepest, 颯 10 → 25.
• Left the top 30: 陽大, 樹, 蒼, 葵, 旭, 琉翔, 結斗 and 湊翔. Only 湊翔 is missing from the 2025 list altogether; the others remain lower down.

Amid all this movement one name stands out for its stability: 蓮 (Ren, "lotus") stayed in the top seven in every year of our 2021–2025 data (1, 3, 7, 6, 5).

Abjad counts the sound, not the kanji

The familiar way of reading numbers into names in Japan is seimei handan, which works with kanji stroke counts. Abjad works quite differently: it writes the name in Arabic letters and adds up the letter values. In a Japanese name, therefore, Abjad follows the sound rather than the spelling. The table below groups the different spellings in the top 30 that share a reading.

It works the other way too: one kanji can carry two sounds, and so two numbers. Read Minato, 湊 gives ميناتو = 507; read Sō, it gives سو = 66. 碧 is mostly read Ao (أو = 7) and sometimes Aoi (أوي = 17). And there is a coincidence: 陽向 (Hinata, هيناتا) and the spellings read Sōta reach the same number, 467, from entirely different sounds.

Highest, lowest and a spelling difference

The highest value in the top 30 belongs to 凪 (Nagi): ناغي = 1061, with 1000 of it coming from the single letter غ. The lowest is 碧 (Ao): أو = 7. The Arabic transcription can also shift the value: Ren is usually written رين (260), while رن gives 250; for Sō, writing سوو instead of سو (66) gives 72. None of this makes one spelling "luckier"; it simply means the spelling used in an analysis has to be settled first.

First letters of the top 10

Sorting the first letters of the Arabic spellings by the classical scheme used in our reports (some authors use a different classification), five of the top 10 begin with a Fire letter: 湊, 伊織, 碧, 陽向 and 陽翔. Three begin with Earth (琉生, 蓮, 藍), one with Air (結翔) and one with Water (朔).

Notes for readers from the Muslim world

All names in the list are Japanese; none is of Arabic origin or appears in the Qur'an. The themes, however, feel universal: water and the sea (湊 harbour, 凪 windless calm), the sky (空, 蒼空) and the sun. The kanji 陽, "sunshine", appears in six spellings of the top 30. One more detail: 翠, "green", is the No. 1 girls' name of 2025 and 30th on the boys' list.

Three quick questions

If I choose a Japanese name, how do I know its Abjad value? First the reading has to be fixed, then that reading has to be written in Arabic letters. If the reading is uncertain, so is the value.

Is a rising name "luckier"? No. The rank only shows how many families in the sample chose that spelling; in the Abjad tradition a name's value has nothing to do with its popularity.

Does the value say anything on its own? On its own it is not an analysis. In the Abjad tradition the real question is how the name forms a whole with the mother's and father's names. A child's yildizname (star chart) is also calculated together with the mother's name, so the same name can point to a different sign and element for a child of a different mother.

Source: Meiji Yasuda Life Insurance (明治安田生命), "Name Ranking 2025" — the company's annual survey of babies born in 2025 to policyholder families (6,312 boys, 6,193 girls); it is not an official count representing all of Japan. Kanji meanings: EDRDG KANJIDIC2 (CC BY-SA).

Note: Readings marked with an asterisk are likely readings, and the same spelling may also be read in other ways. Arabic spellings are transcriptions of the Japanese sound and can vary by source. Abjad values and element interpretations are for information based on the Abjad tradition; they imply no certainty or guarantee.