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Etsuko

Girls' name

Japanese name; meaning depends on kanji

Etsuko has been given to 69 babies in the U.S. since 1921. It was used fewer than 5 times in 2025, so it doesn't appear in the latest year's list — today it's a genuinely uncommon pick. Its peak year was 1925, with 12 recorded.

Babies named Etsuko, 1933

1 in 333,000

Etsuko over time, 1880–2025

Girls
05101518801900192019401960198020002020

Based on births in the U.S. Babies given the name each year. Hover the chart — or focus it and use the arrow keys — for any year. Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Etsuko: meaning, origin, and history

Japanese name; meaning depends on kanji

Japanese

What Etsuko means

Etsuko is documented with more than one possible Japanese character combination. The Latin-letter spelling records a pronunciation; it does not specify one unique kanji spelling or one universal meaning.

Possible character meanings include joy, pleased, child.

Documented naming usage and pronunciation

Etsuko is used in Japanese.

Another recorded pronunciation is /e̞.t͡sɨᵝ.ko̞/ for Etsuko.

Origin, language, and formation

Etsuko is used in English. Its origins include Japanese.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 69 girls were recorded with the name Etsuko between 1921 and 1933. Its highest annual count was 12 in 1925; its best national rank was #2,758 in 1927.

Sources & methodologyReferences, data & attribution

Meaning, origin, and language notes draw on the references below.

American popularity figures use published Social Security Administration records for this exact spelling. Counts below five for a name, sex, and year are omitted.

Wiktionary material is available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

How common is Etsuko?

Etsuko had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 1933, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 1933
1 in 333,000
6 of 1,999,415 births
Among girls only
1 in 168,000
<0.01% of girls
Rank, 1933
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
230,983 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Etsuko sits on the popularity scale

Rarest published (5 a year)#1 — Olivia (13,544)

Chance at least one other child shares the name

If the other children were drawn at random from the 1933 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.

Class of 20Under 1%
Class of 30Under 1%
Grade of 100Under 1%
School of 500Under 1%

Put another way: gather 230,983 children born in 1933 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Etsuko. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Etsukos were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Etsuko was born before 1926 — so the typical Etsuko is around 99 today.

Median birth year
1926
About 99 years old
Biggest decade
1920s
84.1% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
100.0%
A modern name
Recorded since 1950
0
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1920s — 84.1% of all recorded uses (58).

Is Etsuko rising or falling?

Rank movement and count movement can disagree — the number of distinct names in use keeps growing, so a name holding a steady count still slides down the list. Both are shown.

Rank vs 1 year ago
—
Not ranked then
Rank vs 5 years ago
New entry
Not ranked then
Rank vs 10 years ago
—
Not ranked then
Births vs 10 years ago
—
Not published both years
Share of its own peak
0%
Peak was 1925 (12)
Years since peak
100
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Volatile
56.6% average annual change
Best rank ever
#2,758
1927

Spellings of Etsuko

Etsuko is not the most common spelling — Mitsuko is, with 89.1% against Etsuko's 10.9%.

Grouped by closeness of spelling (up to two letter changes), same sex, with a floor on all-time use. It catches Sophia/Sofia and Aiden/Ayden, and misses spellings that sound alike but look different, like Sean and Shawn.

Where Etsuko is used

Across 1910–2025, Etsuko was most concentrated in Hawaii — about 1 in 25,000 girls, against 1 in 484,548 across all states with data. It was least common in California (1 in —).

04 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1Hawaii1 in 25,000
  2. 2California1 in —

Shading is the share of that state's recorded girls given this name, not the raw count — otherwise the map would just show which states are biggest. Unshaded states have no published records for this period. U.S. birth records suppress state-year counts below 5; state counts therefore don't add up to the national total. Every state links to its full rankings. Etsuko has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Etsuko by the numbers

The raw record for each sex the name is used for.

As a girl's name

Rank in 2025
Unranked
Trend vs 5 yrs ago
—
Best rank ever
#2,758
1927
Peak year
1925
12 that year
First recorded
1921
Last recorded
1933
All-time count
69
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Etsuko

Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.

NezukoItsukoKikukoMayukoSuzukoTsuyukoKatsukoMatsukoTazukoTatsukoYasukoMasukoAtsukoNatsukoChizukoNobukoTsurukoKazukoTerukoHatsukoMutsukoEtsubKinukoHaruko

Sibling names for Etsuko

Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.

Explore around Etsuko

Top names of 1925, Etsuko's peak yearThe 1920s in fullOther names that peaked in 1927Girls' names starting with E