If you are writing about Australian baby name trends, building a name explorer, or using official counts in research, you must credit the government source. This guide gives direct attribution steps for the NSW, South Australian and Victorian baby name open datasets, based on their official portal metadata.
Datasets covered and their scope
The verified sources are:
- NSW: “Popular Baby Names 1952 to 2025” published by NSW Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages on Data.NSW. The annual list combines names registered from 1952 to 2025, with data accurate as of 26 March 2026 (Data.NSW).
- South Australia: “Popular Baby Names” from the Attorney-General’s Department, Government of South Australia, covering male and female names registered from 1944 to 2024. The portal states the annual data is published January/February each year (data.sa.gov.au).
- Victoria: “Popular Baby Names” from Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages Victoria on DataVic, providing the top 100 male and female names with frequency counts for every year since 2008 (DataVic).
This guide does not cover the ABS or other jurisdictions because those sources were not verified for this article. If you use more than one state, cite each separately.
Licence and attribution requirement
All three datasets are released under a Creative Commons Attribution licence. The NSW page lists “Creative Commons Attribution” (Data.NSW). The SA dataset also shows “Creative Commons Attribution” (data.sa.gov.au). Victoria specifies “Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International” (DataVic).
Practical interpretation: CC BY requires that you give appropriate credit, provide a link to the licence, and indicate if changes were made. The exact wording of your notice is a matter for your own compliance check, but the metadata below gives the necessary fields.
Key metadata for citation
| Jurisdiction | Publisher | Dataset title | Coverage | Last updated | Licence | Source URL |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NSW | NSW Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages | Popular Baby Names 1952 to 2025 | 1952–2025 (data accurate as of 26 Mar 2026) | 25/03/2026 (page); data accurate 26 Mar 2026 | Creative Commons Attribution | https://data.nsw.gov.au/data/dataset/popular-baby-names-from-1952/resource/2adcb228-9101-4c95-a786-b3216539b4a2 |
| SA | Attorney-General’s Department, Government of South Australia | Popular Baby Names | 1944–2024 | 02/01/2026 | Creative Commons Attribution | https://data.sa.gov.au/data/dataset/popular-baby-names |
| Vic | Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages Victoria | Popular Baby Names | 2008–2025 (top 100 each year) | 14/01/2026 | Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International | https://discover.data.vic.gov.au/dataset/popular-baby-names |
Dates are taken from the portal metadata pages cited above. Always re-check before publication because annual updates occur.
File formats and access points
The way you obtained the data can affect your citation detail.
- NSW: Provided as a CSV download via Data.NSW, with an alternate consumer page at https://www.nsw.gov.au/family-and-relationships/births/popular-baby-names noted on the portal. File format is CSV, last updated 25/03/2026 (Data.NSW).
- SA: Supplies split resources, mainly CSV and XLSX per year, plus a metadata DOC. The landing page is https://data.sa.gov.au/data/dataset/9849aa7f-e316-426e-8ab5-74658a62c7e6; temporal coverage is 1944–2024 (data.sa.gov.au).
- Victoria: Offers an XLSX for 2025 and a “Popular Baby Names Victoria API 1.0.0” in addition to the dataset page. The data consists of ranked top 100 lists with frequency counts (DataVic).
If you used the Victorian API, your attribution should name the API resource, not only the static XLSX.
Suggested plain-text citation
Use a format that names the publisher, title, portal, access date, and licence. Examples:
- NSW: NSW Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages. Popular Baby Names 1952 to 2025. Data.NSW. Accessed 19 October 2026. https://data.nsw.gov.au/data/dataset/popular-baby-names-from-1952/resource/2adcb228-9101-4c95-a786-b3216539b4a2. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution.
- SA: Attorney-General’s Department, Government of South Australia. Popular Baby Names. data.sa.gov.au. Updated 2 January 2026. https://data.sa.gov.au/data/dataset/popular-baby-names. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution.
- Vic: Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages Victoria. Popular Baby Names. DataVic. Updated 14 January 2026. https://discover.data.vic.gov.au/dataset/popular-baby-names. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International.
These are practical templates, not prescribed legal forms.
Step-by-step attribution checklist
- Identify the jurisdiction you pulled names from (NSW, SA, or Vic).
- Copy the exact dataset title from the portal to avoid mislabeling.
- Record the publisher as shown in the table above.
- Note the licence (all are CC BY variants).
- Add the source URL and your access or download date.
- State modifications if you filtered, merged, or transformed the data.
- Keep the portal’s metadata (e.g., SA’s temporal coverage 1944–2024) for accuracy.
- Place the notice in a footer, credits screen, or bibliography where readers can see it.
Questions to verify before you publish
- Has the dataset been updated since you downloaded it? NSW data is noted as accurate 26 March 2026; SA updated 2 January 2026; Vic updated 14 January 2026. You should verify the current version at your access time.
- If you used the Victorian API (Popular Baby Names Victoria API 1.0.0), does your attribution reference the API rather than the static file? The portal provides both.
- Does your intended reuse (for example, a commercial product) require any additional notice beyond CC BY? Confirm with the licence text or the agency contact (Vic’s point of contact is https://www.data.vic.gov.au/contact-us).
- Are you combining states? Then cite each source separately; do not present a merged dataset as a single government product.
Concrete next steps
Open the relevant portal page from the source list at the top of this article. Download the CSV, XLSX, or API response together with the metadata shown on the page. Draft your attribution using the template, insert it in your article footer, app credits, or bibliography. If you are unsure whether your formatting meets the licence, contact the publishing agency using the contact details on their portal.
General information boundary
This article is general information about referencing open government baby name data. It is not legal, copyright, or licensing advice. Licence terms can change, and your obligations depend on how you use the data. Verify current licence conditions with the named government agency or a qualified professional before relying on this guidance.