Sonja
Sonja is a girl's name that peaked in 1968, when it was the 222nd most popular in the United States. In 2025 it ranked 3,903rd. About 32,000 Sonjas are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 57.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Sonja boys named Sonja
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 39,557
- Estimated living today
- 32,000
- Median age today
- 57
- Peak year
- 1968
- Best rank
- 222nd
- Rank in 2025
- 3,903rd
- First recorded
- 1906
- Girls / boys
- 39,513 / 44
How old the living Sonjas are
born that year still alive today
Of the 39,557 babies given the name since 1906, about 32,000 are alive — 81 in every hundred. Roughly 1,500 of them are children and 8,300 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1968 and half after.
An estimate, not a count. SSA births aged forward through SSA cohort life tables, which know nothing about who left the country or arrived in it — so for a name that mostly came to America rather than being born in it, this is a floor rather than a figure. Where you fall among living Americans.
Notable Sonjas
- Sonja Henie (1912–1969)Norwegian figure skater and actress
- Queen Sonja of Norway (born 1937)Queen of Norway since 1991
- Sonja Lang (born 1978)Canadian writer and hyperpolyglot
- Sonja Gerhardt (born 1989)German film and television actress
- Sonja Ziemann (1926–2020)German actress
- Sonja Sohn (born 1964)American actress, activist
- Sonja Vasić (born 1989)Serbian basketball player
- Sonja Edström (1930–2020)Swedish cross-country skier
People named Sonja with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Sonja is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Sonja is most concentrated in Minnesota (2.2×), North Dakota (2.0×), Washington (1.8×), Alabama (1.7×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 1968
The most popular girls’ names the year Sonja peaked:
Sonja elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Norway girls | Sonja | 4,536 | 50th |
| Austria girls | Sonja | 2,946 | 29th |
| France girls | Sonja | 915 | 377th |
| Switzerland girls | Sonja | 485 | 126th |
| Italy girls | Sonja | 197 | — |
| England and Wales girls | Sonja | 101 | 1,970th |
| Ireland girls | Sonja | 72 | 289th |
| Scotland girls | Sonja | 64 | 302nd |
| Poland girls | Sonja | 42 birth registrations | 393rd |
| Belgium girls | Sonja | 11 | 1,015th |
Counts come from each country's own records and are not comparable with the US figures above, which cover different years and a different definition of a recorded name. Where a country writes the name several ways, the spellings are added together and the most common is shown. A row marked name registrations is counting something else: Portugal ranks each of a child's two given names separately, so a girl registered Maria Leonor is in both the Maria row and the Leonor row, and that figure is not a number of children.
Sonja: births by region
| Region | Country | Spelling | Births | Share of the region | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| German girls | Switzerland | Sonja | 465 | 0.037% | 84th |
| French girls | Switzerland | Sonja | 16 | 0.004% | 346th |
| Italian girls | Switzerland | Sonja | 4 | 0.006% | 175th |
Parts of a country counted above, not extra births. The share is what makes the regions comparable: they differ in size by a factor of three hundred.
By canton, Sonja is most concentrated in Schwyz, where 0.13% of children were given it – 45 of them.
Sonja by city
| City | Years | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Berlin girls | 2017–2023 | 30 | 275th |
One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.
Sonja among the living
How many people each country's register counts under the name, rather than how many were given it in any one year. Each register was read on one date, and they are not the same date.
| Country | Spelling | First forename | Any forename |
|---|---|---|---|
| the Netherlands girls | Sonja | 11,491 | 13,275 |
| Finland girls | Sonja | 8,135 | 8,865 |
| the Netherlands boys | Sonja | — | 83 |
A count of people on a register – the Netherlands on 1 January 2018, Finland on 4 August 2026 – and not of births, so it cannot be compared with the figures above. Names with very few bearers are withheld, and a dash in the first-forename column means the register would not say rather than that nobody goes by it.
Where Sonja lives in Spain
Not a count of births but of people: 307 women called Sonja were living in Spain on 1 January 2025, of every age, born in any year. Where they live is not spread evenly.
Women: the provinces where it is densest
| Province | Spelling | People | Per thousand | Place there |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Balears, Illes | Sonja | 47 | 0.075 | 949 |
| Alicante/Alacant | Sonja | 53 | 0.052 | 1,297 |
| Palmas, Las | Sonja | 26 | 0.044 | 1,871 |
| Santa Cruz de Tenerife | Sonja | 21 | 0.038 | 1,909 |
| Málaga | Sonja | 27 | 0.029 | 1,642 |
| Castellón/Castelló | Sonja | 8 | 0.025 | 1,935 |
Listed in 12 of Spain's 52 provinces. In the other 40 it is either held by fewer than 5 people – the point below which the source withholds a name – or it fell past the 5,000 names the source will print for one province. Neither means nobody there is called it. The rate is the source's own, not a share worked out here.
Related names
Sonja against another name
Two names on one chart, with the year one overtook the other.
Try it on yourself
Source: US Social Security Administration, national and state baby-name files, 1880–2025. Counts include only births registered with the SSA, and names with fewer than five births in a year are not published. The living estimate applies SSA cohort life tables to those births; it counts people born in the United States, so it misses anyone who arrived later and anyone who has left.