Czech name

Czech names are composed of a given name and a surname. Czechs typically get one given name – additional names may be chosen by themselves upon baptism but they generally use one. With marriage, the bride typically adopts the bridegroom's surname.

In the Czech Republic, names are simply known as jména ("names") or, if the context requires it, křestní jména ("Baptism names"). The singular form is jméno. Generally, a given name may have Christian roots or traditional Slavic pre-Christian origin (e.g. Milena, Dobromira, , , Vojtěch).

In the past, it was common to give only officially recognized names to children, which were mostly adopted from extended Christian calendar. A special permission was necessary for other names; of course, there were exception for minorities, foreigners etc. Since the Velvet revolution in 1989, parents have had the right to give their child any name they wish, provided it is used somewhere in the world and is not insulting or demeaning. However, the common practice of last years is that most birth-record offices look for the name in the book "Jak se bude vaše dítě jmenovat?" (What is your child going to be called?), which is a semi-official list of "allowed" names. If the name is not found there, authorities are extremely unwilling to register the child's name.

Czech parents remain somewhat conservative in their choices of baby names. In January 2004, the most popular boy's names were Jan (John), Jakub (Jacob or James) and Tomáš (Thomas). The most popular girl's names were Tereza (Theresa), Kateřina (Katherine) and Eliška (Liz or Elise). Throughout all the nine years, the name Tereza is ruling among girls born in January every year. There are much more girls of that name than those of the name on the second position. For six years, the second position belonged to little girls named Kateřina, who have lost recently to Eliška, later to Adéla and most recently to Karolína. Promotion of Eliška upwards to the most popular names was patient and slow, while Adéla kept near the top more steadily (during the last five years she kept the second to fourth position and only in 2007 she fell to the sixth). Quick jump in popularity belongs to Natálie, who remains for six years between the third and seventh position. Anna is celebrating her comeback to the fourth position (her fame was overshadowed only in 2002). Top positions were gradually cleaned out by Nikola (from the previous fourth position she left the first fifteen completely and later came back to around the tenth position). Kristýna holds tight among the top ten for eight years (the trend is, however, decreasing in the long term). Jumper of the last three years is probably Karolína (on the turn of the decades she kept right below the top ten, later her fame was waning, however, during recent years she jumped gradually to the sixth, seventh and even to the second position). Throughout the surveyed period, during the first four years popularity of Barbora was growing dynamically, but from 2003 she is on the tenth to fourteenth position. In the beginning of the period, Veronika was very popular; during five years she fell from the sixth position to the twelfth and later came back to the top ten for a while in 2006. Lucie was in the bottom among the most popular names during the last nine years, however, recently she can be found in the end of the top ten list and her popularity seems to gradually increase.

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