📻 Why Klaus and Wolfgang still beat Kevin and Justin
A rough classification of the top 50 first names by known naming trends per decade, in six fine steps up to today — with no birth dates involved, only the names themselves. Kevin, Justin and Chantal don’t appear among the 50 most common first names of German radio amateurs at all; classic post-war names like Klaus, Wolfgang and Manfred, on the other hand, rank very high — while the younger name generations from 1975 onward together make up only a small fraction. This fits the well-known "amateur radio is aging" narrative.
Method: pure word classification by known first-name fashions per decade, no real birth dates — an approximation, not an exact age survey. The boundaries between the six steps are fluid, and the younger the generation, the fewer first names are available in the top 50 at all.
🕰️ The first-name time travel & the age pyramid
First names by birth decade, the historical license statistics since the 1930s, the number of local clubs, and a (explicitly speculative) model of the age structure — that has grown into its own, substantial topic. So it now has its own page, rather than getting lost here.
👤 Top 150 first names of radio amateurs
Base: 65.343 evaluable first names from individual licenses (club and relay stations excluded).
Top 82 presumed-female first names, classified based on common name lists — a plain word match, unrelated to gender-neutral language debates. Cut off below 10 nationwide mentions, so no rare individual names show up.
Top 127 presumed-male first names, classified based on common name lists — a plain word match, unrelated to gender-neutral language debates. Cut off below 10 nationwide mentions, so no rare individual names show up.
🛣️ Top 150 street names
Base: 59.192 evaluable addresses, summed nationwide. Spelling as in the original list (often abbreviated, e.g. "Hauptstr").
🔢 The most popular house numbers
Number 1 leads narrowly — the higher the number, the rarer it appears as a house number. Digits only, without letter suffixes (a, b …).
⚖️ Gender split, roughly estimated
This is only about presumed first names — male or female, based on traditional, historically grown naming convention. No one was surveyed and no real person was matched; only the first name was evaluated statistically.
🥚 First-name easter eggs in the callsign suffix
Callsign suffixes are technically limited to three characters — most real first names simply don’t fit. Still, a few of the top 50 first names line up with a suffix easter egg found elsewhere on this site:
- MAX (like Maximilian) — 44 callsigns
- KAI (like Kai) — 40 callsigns
- UWE (like Uwe) — 39 callsigns
- DAN (like Daniel) — 38 callsigns
- JAN (like Jan) — 34 callsigns
- TIM (like Tim) — 27 callsigns
- BEN (like Benjamin) — 25 callsigns
- PAT (like Patrick) — 19 callsigns
- ALF (like Alfred) — 18 callsigns
- UDO (like Udo) — 17 callsigns
- RON (like Ronald) — 10 callsigns
- ULF (like Ulf) — 10 callsigns
- JOS (like Josef) — 8 callsigns
- JON (like Jonas) — 6 callsigns
- LUK (like Lukas) — 6 callsigns
- URS (like Ursula) — 3 callsigns
More first-name easter eggs (MAX, KAI, TOM, …) can be found on the Curiosities II page.
All figures on this page: pure nationwide or state-level totals from the public BNetzA list. No individual addresses, no link to a specific callsign.