Most Popular Baby Boy Names in Tunisia: The Latest Official List (2022) and Their Meanings

The name most often given to baby boys in Tunisia is, once again, Youssef, the North African spelling of Yusuf (Joseph). According to the list compiled by Tunisia's National Institute of Statistics (INS) from the civil registers, 3,546 boys born in 2022 received the name. Published on 29 December 2023, it is the most recent official list available: we found no later INS list for births in 2023 or after. "Most popular" in this article therefore refers to 2022.

Most of the top 10 are prophets' names known across the Muslim world: Yusuf, Harun, Yahya, Adam, Zakariya, Yaqub...

The 10 most popular boys' names in Tunisia in 2022

Names are given in the Latin spelling used by the INS, and in Arabic script. The Abjad value is calculated from the name's established Arabic spelling: the letter values are added up, shadda and vowel marks are not counted, and a free-standing hamza (ء) has no value.

In 2022, 76,171 baby boys were registered in Tunisia. The top 10 names account for 21,969 of them, so roughly 29 in every 100 boys received one of these ten names. Youssef alone accounts for about 4.7%, and it is 791 babies ahead of Haroun in second place.

Five of the ten names in two consecutive verses

In verses 84 and 85 of Surah al-An'am, the Qur'an lists a series of prophets. Five of those names are in Tunisia's 2022 top 10: Yaqub, Yusuf and Harun in verse 84, Zakariya and Yahya in verse 85. The other names are linked to the Qur'an as well:

From 2020 to 2022: what changed in three years?

The table shows the number of babies, with the rank in brackets; "—" means the name was not in that year's top 10.

• Yahya rose from 6th to 3rd in three years. Of the eight names in the 2022 top 10 that were also in the 2020 top 10, it is the only one given to more babies than in 2020: 2,584, up from 2,329.
• Adam moved the other way: second in 2020, fourth in 2022.
• Mohamed slipped from 4th to 5th, Ahmed from 5th to 6th. Zakaria overtook Yaakoub to take 7th place.
• Sajed entered at No. 10 with 1,423 babies; it was not in the 2020 or 2021 top 10. In the INS's words, it took the place of Amen-Allah.
• Amen-Allah was 10th in 2020 and 2021 and left the top 10 in 2022.

A note on the counts: all nine names that were also in the 2021 top 10 were given to fewer babies in 2022. Because the INS gives the total number of births only for 2022, these figures cannot tell us how much of the decrease reflects the overall number of births.

Bayrem: a link to the Turkish word "bayram"?

In 2020 the No. 9 name (1,849 babies) was Bayrem (بيرم), a name that also exists in Turkish as Bayram. Behind the Name gives Bayram as a Turkish name meaning "festival, feast", and بيرم may be the Arabic spelling of that word. However, the sources do not confirm that the Tunisian use of the name comes from Turkish, so we do not present the link as established fact. The name is not in the 2021 or 2022 top 10. Its Abjad value is 252 (ب 2, ي 10, ر 200, م 40).

Youssef in the north, Mohamed in the south

According to the INS map by governorate, Youssef was the most common name in the northern half of the country in 2022, except in Siliana and Béja, where Yaakoub and Yahya came first. In the south the picture changes: in Tozeur, Kebili, Gabès, Medenine and Tataouine the most frequent name was Mohamed. A name ranked fifth nationally is first in five governorates.

Two lists a century apart

The same INS publication also gives the top 10 for births in 1922. Only two names from the 1922 list are still in the 2022 top 10: Mohamed and Ahmed. In 1922 Mohamed was first and Ahmed fourth, alongside names such as Ali, Omar, Hassan and Ibrahim. Today's leader, Youssef, was only 20th in 1922, according to the INS text.

The top 10 through the lens of Abjad

First letters and elements

Using the classical classification applied in our reports (some authors order the letters differently), the first letters of the top 10 break down as follows: four names begin with a Fire letter (Haroun ه, Adam آ, Mohamed م, Ahmed أ), four with an Air letter and two with a Water letter (Zakaria ز, Sajed س). None begins with an Earth letter. All four Air names start with the same letter, ي (ya): Youssef, Yahya, Yaakoub and Yassine. Together they were given to 9,201 babies in 2022.

Highest and lowest values

The highest value belongs to Haroun: هارون = 262 (ه 5, ا 1, ر 200, و 6, ن 50), most of it coming from the letter ر. The lowest is Yahya: يحيى = 38.

Does a different spelling change the value?

Not always. Zakaria's Tunisian spelling زكرياء ends in a hamza, while the common spelling زكريا has none; since a free-standing hamza has no value, both come to 238. Yahya written يحيي also gives 38, because ى and ي are counted with the same value. The INS bulletin itself writes the name يحى, with a single ya; spelled that way it would total 28. Even so, the spelling used in an analysis should be settled first, and no spelling is more "auspicious" than another.

From the list to your family

A name's Abjad value on its own is not an analysis. In the Abjad tradition, the real question is how the name fits together with the mother's and father's names. A child's yıldızname (star chart) is calculated not from the child's name alone but together with the mother's name, so the same name Youssef can point to a different sign and element for the child of a different mother.

Source: Tunisia National Institute of Statistics (INS), "Les prénoms des nouveau-nés les plus populaires en Tunisie 2022", 29 December 2023. Data from the civil registers (Centre National de l'Informatique); counts are boys born in 2022.

Note: Name meanings are based on common dictionary information; Arabic spellings may vary by source. Abjad values and element interpretations are for information, based on the Abjad tradition; they imply no certainty or guarantee.