Marriages, children, names

Author: VK

Moscow civil registry offices have rounded up 2011. Irina Muravyova, head of the Moscow Civil Registry Directorate, said that the most interesting aspect of the statistics is birth certificates. 125,058 of them were issued in Moscow last year, exceeding the number in 2010 by 1420. The number of boys increased by 64,000.

37,328 children were born into families with parents under 30, the so-called young families. 78.6% of children were born into families where the parents are officially registered as couples, compared with less than 50% in the 2000s. 12.2% of children underwent paternal recognition procedures. Only 8.7% of children were registered in single-parent families with single mothers. 9.6% were registered in families with one or both parents foreigners. 1720 documents were issued to twins, 31 triplets.

47.4% of men and 65% of women became parents aged under 30. Muravyova emphasized that journalists show more interest in under-aged mothers. There were 485 such cases in Moscow in 2011, dropping by 25, compared with 2010. Half of them were single mothers.

The number of births in Moscow has increased by 70.9% since 2000 and remains sustainable.

Muravyova talked about popular names in 2011. The top 10 popular female names of 2011 were Maria, Anastasia, Anna, Darya, Yelizaveta, Polina, Victoria, Yekaterina and Varvara. Alexander remains the most popular male name, followed by Artem, Maxim, Ivan, Dmitry, Daniil, Mikhail, Kirill, Nikita and Andrey. There were no extravagant names last year, but Old Slavic and Scandinavian names have become more popular. Female names of such a kind include Lyubomira, Radomira, Miloloka, male names – Budimir, Bronimir, Luchezar, Svetoloyar.

The civil registry official noted that the number of wedding registries increased in Moscow in 2011, compared with the 2000s. Some 97,900 couples were registered in 2011, exceeding 2010 by 6760. The number of official weddings increased by 43.8%, compared with 2000. 68.8% of men and 71.8% of women had their first marriages in 2011. Most young couples in Moscow were aged 25-34 (52% men and 48.8% women). The second popular age for marriage is 35 for men and 18-24 for women. 179 people aged 16-17 married in Moscow (25 of them male). The figure slightly dropped, compared with 2010. 11% of marriages were made between one of one or both of the newlyweds being foreigners.

Citizens of 114 states had marriages in Russia (excluding Russian citizens) in 2011. Some of the most common foreigners registering marriages came from Turkey, Germany, Israel, the USA, the UK, Italy, Afghanistan, Syria, Egypt and France. The most common foreign newlyweds from post-Soviet republics came from Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus, Armenia, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Georgia and Kazakhstan.