More than 2,400 Brazilian citizens have the name Neymar as their first record, according to data collected by the IBGE 2022 Census and released in the year 2025. This survey takes place while the Brazilian team is preparing for an important clash, which could mark the player’s entry into the 2026 World Cup. The match is scheduled for 7pm, Brasília time, at the Hard Rock Stadium, in Miami, against Scotland. The initial information was reported by the newspaper Extra.
Records of the name Neymar before the player’s rise
Apesar da associação imediata com o famoso atacante, o nome Neymar já existia no Brasil muito antes de sua projeção global, embora em uma frequência bem menor. In the 1950s, the country had only 23 individuals baptized with that name. Vinte anos depois, nos anos 1960, período em que o pai do atleta nasceu, o número de registros subiu para 65. Entre 1980 e 1989, houve um aumento mais expressivo, com 356 nascimentos registrados. However, in the 1990s, the year the player himself was born, the occurrence decreased to 99.
The explosion of name registrations with the athlete’s fame
The most significant increase in registrations of the name Neymar occurred from the 2010s onwards. It was during this period that the striker gained visibility at national level, completed his transfer to European football and established himself as a central figure in the Brazilian team. The Census shows that 1,468 people were named Neymar between 2010 and 2019, which corresponds to approximately 60% of the total number of Brazilians with that name. Between 2020 and 2022, the study also identified 131 more children, and the average age of this group was 11 years old in 2022.
Em termos de concentração, o estado de São Paulo registra o maior número absoluto, com 340 pessoas chamadas Neymar, seguido pelo Rio de Janeiro, com 85. Contudo, analisando proporcionalmente, Roraima se destaca na liderança, com 0,008% de sua população carregando o nome. Other states with high relative concentration include Amazonas, Acre and Amapá. The IBGE also revealed a strong male predominance: of the 2,443 records, 2,393 (or 98%) are from men, while 50 are women. A variation of the name, Neimar, was also identified in 3,094 additional records.