Argentina still largely blocks parents from using Messi as a first name, even after one family won a rare exemption more than a decade ago. The result is a country that celebrates Lionel Messi everywhere it can, yet keeps the surname itself off most birth certificates.
That contrast is why the name is back in focus now. As of June 2025, only 11 Argentine citizens or legal foreign residents were listed with Messi as a first name, all of them 19 or younger. By comparison, the registry counted 205 American citizens, roughly 265 people in France, 363 Brazilians and 3,402 residents of Peru with the same name.
The most visible case is Messi David Varela, who kept his first name after his parents, Hector Varela and Lorena Sanchez, received an exemption from the civil registry office in Río Negro province in 2014. They said they preferred Messi because there were already so many Lionels and Leos named for the Argentina captain, and Hector Varela called the choice more of a statement in a September 2014 interview.
The law behind the restriction is older than Messi’s fame. Argentina passed a statute in 1969 banning surnames as first names, and that rule still shapes what parents can and cannot register. After the 2014 exemption became public, other expecting parents in Santa Fe tried the same route, but the head of the civil registry office there rejected the requests and said surnames as first names are prohibited because they can cause confusion.
Santiago Williams, a Buenos Aires-based attorney, said the law is national and uniform, but its enforcement changes from province to province. That helps explain why one family in Río Negro province was allowed to use Messi while others faced a flat refusal in Santa Fe. It also explains the narrow count: the registry is not recording a lack of admiration for Lionel Messi, only how rarely officials allow his surname to become a child’s first name.
Most Argentine parents who want to honor him appear to take the safer path. The registry counted more than 100,000 people from Argentina with the first name Lionel, and about 87% of them were 19 or younger, showing how quickly his rise from FC Barcelona debutant in October 2004 spread through naming choices. Messi reached FC Barcelona at age 17, became the club’s youngest goalscorer eight months later and later led Argentina to its first World Cup title, but his surname still runs into a legal wall at home. For now, that wall remains intact, and the rare exception granted in 2014 is still the clearest answer to why Messi Kids are so uncommon in Argentina.
