Popular Japanese Baby Names in 2026: What Parents in Japan Are Choosing
If you want to know which names Japanese parents are actually choosing, the best-known source is the annual name survey by the life insurer Meiji Yasuda. It has run every year since 1989, and its results are widely reported in Japan. This article walks through the latest full ranking, explains what the names mean, and links each one to its page in our dictionary.
How the ranking works
Meiji Yasuda counts the names of children born that year whose families hold its life insurance policies. For 2025 that meant 6,312 boys and 6,193 girls. That is a sample, not a national census, so treat close positions as roughly equal. Still, it is the ranking most people in Japan mean when they talk about "this year's popular names".
The survey publishes two lists: one by written form (the kanji) and one by reading (the sound). They tell different stories, because one sound can be written many ways.
Top boys' names by kanji
The number one boys' name for 2025 was 湊, read Minato. The kanji means a harbour, a place where water and boats gather, and it rose from 15th place the year before to first place for the first time.
Second place was shared by 伊織 Iori and 結翔 Yuito. Yuito pairs 結 ("tie, bind") with 翔 ("soar"). The rest of the top ten included:
- 琉生, read mostly as Rui
- 蓮 Ren, "lotus"
- 朔 Saku, the new moon or first day of the month
- 碧, "jade blue", read mostly as Ao and sometimes as Aoi
- 陽向 Hinata, "facing the sun"
- 陽翔 Haruto, "sun" and "soar"
- 藍, "indigo", read mostly as Ran for boys
The survey itself points out that half of the boys' top ten are single-kanji names, such as 湊, 蓮 and 朔.
Top girls' names by kanji
For girls, 翠 Sui reached first place for the first time. The kanji means jade green, and it is also the character for the kingfisher. Second was 陽葵 Himari, "sun" and "hollyhock", and third was 紬 Tsumugi, a hand-spun silk.
The rest of the top ten:
- 茉白 Mashiro: jasmine and white
- 凛 Rin: dignified, cold and clear
- 陽菜 Hina
- 心陽 Koharu: heart and sun
- 彩葉 Iroha: colour and leaf
- 詩 Uta: poem
- 琴葉 Kotoha: koto and leaf
- 結菜 Yuna
Meiji Yasuda highlights colour as a theme for girls. 翠 itself is a colour, and the survey counted 28 colour-related names in the girls' top 100. If that appeals, browse our names meaning colours.
Top names by sound
By reading, the boys' list was led by Haruto for the 17th year in a row. It was followed by:
For girls, the top reading was Ema. After it came:
The two lists differ because popular sounds are spread across many spellings. The survey found 39 different ways of writing Haruto among the babies it counted, and 31 for Ema. A sound like Haruto can top the reading list for years while no single spelling of it dominates the kanji list.
The favourite kanji
Meiji Yasuda also counts individual characters. For boys, 翔 ("soar, fly") was the most-used kanji for the fifth year running. You can see it in Haruto, Yuito, Shota and Tsubasa. For girls the top kanji was 愛 ("love") for the fourth year running, as in Ai and Mana.
What the trends suggest
A few patterns stand out if you are looking for a name that feels current in Japan:
- Short, single-kanji names for boys, like Minato, Ren and Saku.
- Nature and light, especially 陽 ("sun"), which appears in Himari, Hinata, Haruto, Hina and Koharu. See names meaning sun.
- Soft sounds that travel well, like Ema, Sena and Sana, which are easy to say outside Japan too.
Popular is not the same as timeless, though. In the same survey's historical tables, 恵子 Keiko was the top girls' name in most years from 1953 to 1961. No -ko name made the 2025 girls' top ten. Our full list of first names mixes both generations, so you can compare them.
Keep exploring
Every name above has its own page with all its common spellings, a kanji breakdown and pronunciation. Browse all boy names and girl names, look up names by meaning, or read our short guide to Japanese names.