Name Awesome

Iwao

Boys' name

From Japanese いわお; literal meaning unconfirmed

Iwao has been given to 178 babies in the U.S. since 1914. 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 1921, with 20 recorded.

Babies named Iwao, 1936

1 in 416,000

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Iwao: meaning, origin, and history

From Japanese いわお; literal meaning unconfirmed

Japanese

What Iwao means

Iwao is a given name.

Origin, language, and formation

Iwao is used in English. Its origins include Japanese.

Iwao comes through Japanese いわお.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 178 boys were recorded with the name Iwao between 1914 and 1936. Its highest annual count was 20 in 1921; its best national rank was #1,798 in 1921.

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 Iwao?

Iwao had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 1936, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 1936
1 in 416,000
5 of 2,077,561 births
Among boys only
1 in 207,000
<0.01% of boys
Rank, 1936
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
288,012 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Iwao 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 1936 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 288,012 children born in 1936 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Iwao. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Iwaos were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Iwao was born before 1922 — so the typical Iwao is around 103 today.

Median birth year
1922
About 103 years old
Biggest decade
1920s
61.2% 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 — 61.2% of all recorded uses (109).

Is Iwao 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 1921 (20)
Years since peak
104
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Volatile
30.0% average annual change
Best rank ever
#1,798
1921

Spellings of Iwao

Iwao is not the most common spelling — Ian is, with 51.0% against Iwao's 0.04%.

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 Iwao is used

Across 1910–2025, Iwao was most concentrated in Hawaii — about 1 in 8,333 boys, against 1 in 195,641 across all states with data. It was least common in California (1 in —).

012 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1Hawaii1 in 8,333
  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. Iwao has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Iwao 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
#1,798
1921
Peak year
1921
20 that year
First recorded
1914
Last recorded
1936
All-time count
178
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Iwao

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

Iwan

Sibling names for Iwao

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 Iwao

Top names of 1921, Iwao's peak yearThe 1920s in fullOther names that peaked in 1921Boys' names starting with I