Name Awesome

Isao

Boys' name

Merit

Isao has been given to 246 babies in the U.S. since 1915. 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 20 recorded.

Babies named Isao, 2016

1 in 734,000

Isao over time, 1880–2025

Boys
0510152018801900192019401960198020002020

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Isao: meaning, origin, and history

Merit

Deeper origin not confirmed in the cited records

What Isao means

Isao means “merit”.

Documented naming usage and pronunciation

Isao is used in Japanese.

Another recorded pronunciation is /i.sä.o̞/ for Isao.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 246 boys were recorded with the name Isao between 1915 and 2016. Its highest annual count was 20 in 1925; its best national rank was #1,770 in 1925.

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.

How common is Isao?

Isao had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 2016, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 2016
1 in 734,000
5 of 3,669,531 births
Among boys only
1 in 380,000
<0.01% of boys
Rank, 2016
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
508,706 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Isao sits on the popularity scale

Rarest published (5 a year)#1 — Liam (20,818)

Chance at least one other child shares the name

If the other children were drawn at random from the 2016 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 508,706 children born in 2016 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Isao. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Isaos were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Isao was born before 1923 — so the typical Isao is around 102 today.

Median birth year
1923
About 102 years old
Biggest decade
1920s
52.0% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
2.0%
Mostly a past generation
Recorded since 1950
5
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1920s — 52.0% of all recorded uses (128).

Is Isao 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 (20)
Years since peak
100
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Volatile
30.4% average annual change
Best rank ever
#1,770
1925

Spellings of Isao

Isao is not the most common spelling — Isaac is, with 31.0% against Isao's 0.02%.

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 Isao is used

Across 1910–2025, Isao was most concentrated in Hawaii — about 1 in 6,667 boys, against 1 in 123,281 across all states with data. It was least common in California (1 in —).

015 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1Hawaii1 in 6,667
  2. 2California1 in —

Shading is the share of that state's recorded boys 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. Isao has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Isao around the world

Where Isao ranks in official birth records elsewhere in the world. Rankings only — the number of births isn’t comparable between places, so it isn’t shown.

  • France
    2003–2025
    #342
    in 2025

Popularity data from Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques. INSEE data under Licence Ouverte / Etalab 2.0.

Isao by the numbers

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

As a boy's name

Rank in 2025
Unranked
Trend vs 5 yrs ago
—
Best rank ever
#1,770
1925
Peak year
1925
20 that year
First recorded
1915
Last recorded
2016
All-time count
246
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Isao

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

IsamIsaisIsahiIsanIsaiaIsakIsairIsauroIsaackIsaicIsackIsayIsaulIsaihaIsaahIsaidIsaihIsacIsaiahsIsamiIsayahIsaiyahIsamuIsacc

Sibling names for Isao

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 Isao

Top names of 1925, Isao's peak yearThe 1920s in fullOther names that peaked in 1925Boys' names starting with I