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Masao

Boys' name

Japanese name; meaning depends on kanji

Masao has been given to 1,018 babies in the U.S. since 1907. 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 1918, with 81 recorded.

Babies named Masao, 2019

1 in 694,000

Masao over time, 1880–2025

Boys
025507510018801900192019401960198020002020

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Masao: meaning, origin, and history

Japanese name; meaning depends on kanji

Japanese

What Masao means

Masao 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 right, proper, government, hero, manly, man, husband.

Documented naming usage and pronunciation

Masao is used in Japanese.

Another recorded pronunciation is /mä.sä.o̞/ for Masao.

Origin, language, and formation

Masao is used in English. Its origins include Japanese.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 1,018 boys were recorded with the name Masao between 1907 and 2019. Its highest annual count was 81 in 1918; its best national rank was #705 in 1918.

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 Masao?

Masao had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 2019, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 2019
1 in 694,000
5 of 3,472,229 births
Among boys only
1 in 359,000
<0.01% of boys
Rank, 2019
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
481,354 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Masao 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 2019 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 481,354 children born in 2019 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Masao. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Masaos were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Masao was born before 1921 — so the typical Masao is around 104 today.

Median birth year
1921
About 104 years old
Biggest decade
1920s
44.5% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
1.8%
Mostly a past generation
Recorded since 1950
30
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1920s — 44.5% of all recorded uses (453).

Is Masao 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 1918 (81)
Years since peak
107
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Volatile
30.0% average annual change
Best rank ever
#705
1918

Spellings of Masao

Masao is not the most common spelling — Mason is, with 44.1% against Masao's 0.13%.

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 Masao is used

Across 1910–2025, Masao was most concentrated in Hawaii — about 1 in 1,087 boys, against 1 in 25,666 across all states with data. It was least common in Oregon (1 in —).

092 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1Hawaii1 in 1,087
  2. 2California1 in 50,000
  3. 3Washington1 in 100,000
  4. 4Oregon1 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. Masao has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Masao around the world

Where Masao 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
    2003–2021
    #4,819
    in 2021

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

Masao 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
#705
1918
Peak year
1918
81 that year
First recorded
1907
Last recorded
2019
All-time count
1,018
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Masao

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

MasaiMasynMasiahMasenMasudMasterMassiahMassonMaseMastonMasihMasinMasatoMassaiMasaruMasirMassimoMasamiMasakiMasiyahMastenMasunMassieMasani

Sibling names for Masao

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 Masao

Top names of 1918, Masao's peak yearThe 1910s in fullOther names that peaked in 1918Boys' names starting with MJapanese Boy NamesJapanese Names