In recent months, the European leaders have been struggling to cope with the tens of thousands of asylum seekers who continue to seek refuge within the European Union. According to a recent report released by EUROSTAT, the statistical office of the European Union, “the number of first time asylum applicants increased by 86% in the first quarter of 2015 compared with the same quarter of the previous year.”

According to many international human rights organizations, the EU’s policies for dealing with this humanitarian emergency have been dismal. Within Germany, the Chancellor, Angela Merkel, has been particularly sharply criticized for failing to respond quickly and effectively enough to this crisis.

In the midst of all this criticism, the Chancellor has received an unusual vote of confidence from an unexpected source. As a sign of her gratitude, 26 year old Ophelya Adé, an asylum-seeker from Ghana, named her newborn baby daughter Angela Merkel Adé. When asked by the naming authorities in Hanover why she had chosen that name, Adé replied that she liked Merkel. Whether the new Fraulein Merkel will be allowed to remain in Germany along with the other 750 foreigners who have applied for asylum in Hannover remains to be seen.

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On the 22 of July 2011, 77 people were brutally murdered in one of the worst acts of domestic terror to ever hit Norway. The massacre began with an early morning car bomb that exploded in Oslo’s government district, injuring more than 200 and killing 8 people. Later that afternoon as law enforcement officials worked their way through the locked-down district in their search for the assailant(s), panicked reports began to pour in from the island of Utøya, where scores of teenagers were spending their summer at the Norwegian Labour Party’s annual Youth Camp. By the time special forces had arrived, victims’ bodies were already lining the island’s shores.

This summer, for the first time since the massacre, a group of students from the Norwegian Labour Party has returned to the Utøya. For many within the Party, the island has become a symbol of national unity against hatred and a sacred place of remembrance. To honor the memory of those who lost their lives on that day, the Norwegian government has erected a memorial featuring the names of many who died during the hate crime.

However, some of the victims’ families have asked that their loved ones’ names not be placed on the memorial. Their loss, they explain, is simply too private to be added to the list. Other survivor families take issue with the fact that officials did not sufficiently consulted in the memorial plan-making. As one parent explained to a UK Guardian reporter, “We all want to honour our children. […] But we all deserve to be asked. It’s our children’s names.”

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The final tally is in: The most popular personal names in Estonia for the year 2014 have been announced by the nation’s Ministry of the Interior.

The top 5 Estonian Girls’ Names:

1. Sofia
2. Eliise
3. Maria
4. Mia
5. Lisandra

The top 5 Estonian Boys’ Names:

1. Rasmus
2. Artjom
3. Robin
4. Martin
5. Oliver

What is particularly striking about these results is the degree to which American and Estonian parents of baby girls seem to share the same onomastic tastes. Many of the top Estonian girls’ names are common in the US as well. For example, according to data collected by babynames.com, in the US, Sofia is ranked twelfth and Mia is ranked sixth.

As for those parents who brought home a bouncing baby boy in 2014, the name preferences seemed to show a greater national divide. While the American favorite Liam is nowhere to be found amongst the Estonia’s top 25 baby boy names, the Balkan favorite Rasmus was chosen so infrequently by American parents in 2014 that it was not even included in the national ranking.

Click here for more on popular baby names in the US.

Click here for more on the top baby names in Estonia.