Name Awesome

Naoko

Girls' name

Japanese name; meaning depends on kanji

Naoko has been given to 67 babies in the U.S. since 1977. 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 1982, with 9 recorded.

Babies named Naoko, 1993

1 in 538,000

Naoko over time, 1880–2025

Girls
02.557.51018801900192019401960198020002020

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Naoko: meaning, origin, and history

Japanese name; meaning depends on kanji

Japanese

What Naoko means

Naoko 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 straight, direct, child.

Documented naming usage and pronunciation

Naoko is used in Japanese.

Another recorded pronunciation is /nä.o̞.ko̞/ for Naoko.

Origin, language, and formation

Naoko is used in English and Tagalog. Its origins include Japanese.

Naoko comes through Japanese なおこ.

Pronunciation and spelling

In Tagalog, Naoko is pronounced /ˈnawko/.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 67 girls were recorded with the name Naoko between 1977 and 1993. Its highest annual count was 9 in 1982; its best national rank was #7,279 in 1982.

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 Naoko?

Naoko had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 1993, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 1993
1 in 538,000
7 of 3,768,729 births
Among girls only
1 in 258,000
<0.01% of girls
Rank, 1993
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
373,185 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Naoko 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 1993 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 373,185 children born in 1993 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Naoko. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Naokos were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Naoko was born before 1983 — so the typical Naoko is around 42 today.

Median birth year
1983
About 42 years old
Biggest decade
1980s
53.7% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
100.0%
A modern name
Recorded since 1950
67
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1980s — 53.7% of all recorded uses (36).

Is Naoko 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 1982 (9)
Years since peak
43
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Volatile
32.2% average annual change
Best rank ever
#7,279
1982

Spellings of Naoko

Naoko is not the most common spelling — Naomi is, with 96.1% against Naoko's 0.03%.

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 Naoko is used

Across 1910–2025, Naoko was most concentrated in California — about 1 in — girls, against 1 in 3,202,555 across all states with data.

00 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1California1 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. Naoko has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Naoko around the world

Where Naoko 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
    2012–2012
    #7,515
    in 2012

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

Naoko 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
#7,279
1982
Peak year
1982
9 that year
First recorded
1977
Last recorded
1993
All-time count
67
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Naoko

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

NaomikaNaomiiNaolaNaomeNaomeeKokoNaoriNaokiNaoShokoNaomyRyokoKyokoNaobiTomokoNaomiroseSayokoMomokoSatokoNaomieMiyokoToyokoNaomiaNaohmi

Sibling names for Naoko

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 Naoko

Top names of 1982, Naoko's peak yearThe 1980s in fullOther names that peaked in 1982Girls' names starting with N