Fewer and fewer births

Styria: Valentina and Jakob most popular names

Styrians are conservative when it comes to naming, even though some rather special names appear in the statistics

(Bild: S.Kobold - stock.adobe.com)

For the first time, Valentina is the most popular girls' name in Styria, while Jakob is once again the most popular boys' name. The birth deficit remains high, with only two districts recording a slight increase.

The Styrian state statisticians led by Martin Mayer have once again surveyed the most popular first names for the past year. According to the survey, Valentina is in first place for girls for the first time - ahead of Johanna and Mia. For boys, Jakob took first place, followed by Paul and Jonas. In the multi-year evaluation from 2010 to 2023, however, Maximilian and Anna are still in first place.

From Aurèl to Zehrish
The statistics also list names that are rarely given. In 2023, boys' names include Aurèl, Chimeremeze, Ezz, Gwydion, Kalu, Oluwajoba, Xingran and Zeijn, while girls' names include Apsara, Disha, Huxi, Myrto, Oleya, Rym, Taye and Zehrish.

However, according to experts, the trend of falling birth rates continued in 2023. The number fell again by 316 or minus three percent to 10,375 births. As a result, the number of children per woman naturally also fell from 1.38 in 2022 to 1.33 in 2023.

"A look at the nationwide birth figures shows that Graz-Stadt (1.7 percent) and Liezen (2.1 percent) were the only districts to record an increase in live births. All other districts had surplus deaths, some of which were significant," reports Mayer.

Martin Mayer is head of the Statistics and Geoinformation Department at the Province of Styria.

(Bild: Land Steiermark)

The largest declines in births compared to 2022 were recorded in Leoben (-17.3%), Murtal (-8.0%) and Weiz (-7.4%), meaning that the number of births per woman in Leoben fell to just 1.08, while Liezen recorded a maximum of 1.60.

Soon every third woman childless?
If the current trend continues, around one in three women will no longer have children at all. In the same period, the infant mortality rate rose from a (very low) 1.4 to 2.7 per 1000 live births, making Styria the third-highest in the federal provinces.

There was a striking development in the number of deaths last year: These fell by 4.5 percent and, at 13,535, are now well below the 14,000 mark again.

Life expectancy continues to rise
The decline in the number of deaths also had an impact on life expectancy, which increased for both women and men. In 2023, life expectancy was 84.4 years for women and 79.4 years for men, almost reaching the pre-corona level again. With the decline in both deaths and births, the birth deficit has decreased, but at -3160 it remains the third highest since the Second World War after 2020 and 2022.

After the "wedding boom" in 2022, fewer couples went down the aisle last year. With 379 (-5.6%) fewer marriages than in the previous year, the number of weddings was 6351, which is still a high level. As in previous years, marriage rates were higher in urban areas, particularly in the greater Graz area, than in rural areas. Graz recorded 1,584 marriages (-0.6%) and Graz-Umgebung 864 (-7.1%), i.e. a total of almost 40% of all marriages in Styria.

"Only" one in three marriages breaks up
The number of divorces remains low and, at 1902 cases, has even reached a new low since 1986; the so-called overall divorce rate has also fallen to 33.3%, meaning that only one in three marriages will end in divorce in the future.