Most Popular Baby Girl Names in Russia 2025 and Their Meanings

In 2025 the name given to the most baby girls in Russia was once again София (Sofiya). The national top five comes from the civil registry portal (ЕГР ЗАГС) of Russia's Federal Tax Service and was reported in the press in January 2026. The most interesting spot in the list is not the top but the bottom step: only 30 babies separate the fourth name from the fifth.

Below you will find the national top five with registered numbers, meanings, Arabic spellings and Abjad values. We then compare it with the 2023 and 2024 rankings and look at Moscow's own top 10. At the end there is a small curiosity corner: four of the names give one number when spelled after their Russian sound and another when written in their traditional Arabic form.

First, the limits of the data

• Top five only. For the country as a whole, the published data covers the top five names and their numbers. We have no longer national list, and we do not estimate the missing ranks.
• Numbers depend on the registry date. The figures show births entered in the registry as of January 2026 and can rise as late registrations are added. Interim figures reported at the end of December 2025 were lower: 20,337 for София.
• Moscow is a separate list. The capital's top 10 comes from the Moscow ZAGS (civil registry) Office and covers Moscow only.

Russia's top five girls' names in 2025

The gap between София and Ева in second place is 2,629 babies. The 30-baby gap between Мария (15,153) and Варвара (15,123) is almost a tie; since small gaps can shift as records are updated, it is safer to read these two places as neck and neck.

None of the five names is of Slavic origin: София is Greek; Ева, Анна and Мария are Hebrew in origin; Варвара comes from a Latin word.

Three years of rankings: four fixed places

The first four places are the same in all three years: София, Ева, Анна, Мария. The only change is fifth place: held by Виктория in 2023 and 2024, it went to Варвара in 2025. For 2024 only the order was reported, without numbers.

Comparing the 2023 and 2025 numbers needs care, because the 2023 figures were reported on 1 February 2024 and their cut-off dates are not known. One thing is still clear: the gap at the top has narrowed. In 2023, 4,923 babies separated София from Ева; in 2025, 2,629.

Moscow's own list

The Moscow ZAGS Office published its 2025 top 10 with numbers. In the capital the first name is Анна (1,927); София, first in Moscow in 2023, is now second with 1,847, 80 babies behind. We only have the top five of Moscow's 2023 list, so the 2023 rank of the other names is left blank.

Five names that are not in the national top five appear in Moscow's top 10:

• Василиса (Vasilisa): from the Greek root for "royal"; the feminine form of Vasiliy (Basil).
• Виктория (Viktoriya): Latin "victory".
• Александра (Aleksandra): the feminine form of Aleksandr; Greek "defender of people".
• Полина (Polina): a form of Paulina, or a short form of Apollinariya.
• Алиса (Alisa): the Russian form of Alice; Germanic in origin, "noble type".

The Abjad window

Russian names have no single official Arabic spelling. We calculated the values from the spelling used in the Arabic press and on Arabic Wikipedia for well-known people who bear these names; for Варвара and Алиса no established example was found, so they are spelled after their sound. The Abjad value is the plain sum of the letters in that spelling.

• First letters: of the 10 names in this article, 8 begin with a Fire letter (إ آ م ف أ) and 2 with an Air letter (ص ب). Because the Russian letter В is written ف in Arabic, Варвара, Виктория and Василиса also fall into the Fire group. This follows the classical classification used on our site; some authors classify the letters differently.
• Highest and lowest: Виктория has the highest value, 717; 400 of it comes from a single letter, ت. The lowest is Анна (آنا) with 52.
• Same number: Мария (ماريا) and Василиса (فاسيليسا) reach the same total with different letters: 252.
• If the spelling changes: the Arabic press also writes Виктория as فيكتوريا; one extra ي raises the value from 717 to 727.

One name, two different numbers

Four names in the list are Russian forms of names known in Arabic for centuries. Spelled after their Russian sound they give one number; written in their traditional Arabic form they give another:

• Мария – Maryam: from Hebrew Miriam. Maryam (Mary) is the only woman mentioned by name in the Qur'an.
• Ева – Hawwa: the Qur'an does not name Adam's wife; the name Hawwa is known from hadith and Islamic sources.
• Анна – Hanna: from Hebrew Hannah. In Islamic tradition Hanna is known as the name of Maryam's mother, who appears in the Qur'an as "the wife of Imran" (Al Imran 3:35).
• Варвара – Barbara: the Russian form of Saint Barbara's name; in Arabic the saint is written بربارة.

Which value is right? Both, but they measure different spellings. No spelling is more auspicious than another; what matters is that the family settles which spelling it adopts before any calculation begins.

Looking towards 2026

There is no 2026 data yet, and we make no forecast. The three years we have show only this: nationally, the first four places did not change from 2023 to 2025; the movement happened in fifth place and at the top of Moscow's list. Those are also the first places to look at when the 2026 list comes out: the 30-baby gap between Мария and Варвара, and the swap between Анна and София in Moscow.

From number to analysis

A name's Abjad value on its own is not an analysis. In the Abjad tradition, what matters is how the letter and element structure of the name balances with the mother's and father's names; for the child's star chart (yıldızname) the mother's name is also taken into account. The same Анна may complete a missing element in one family and reinforce an already dominant one in another.

This article is for information only. Abjad interpretations rest on tradition and give no definitive verdict or guarantee about any name.

Source: data of the Russian Federal Tax Service civil registry portal (ЕГР ЗАГС), as reported in the press: for 2025, TASS analysis (TV-21, 16 January 2026; registry as of January 2026); for 2023, Snob (1 February 2024); for the 2024 order, T-Zh (Т—Ж). For Moscow: Moscow ZAGS Office (mos.ru, 21 January 2026) and, for 2023, Snob/TASS (7 February 2024). The numbers show first names in births registered by the date concerned.