Pao
Boys' nameMeaning not yet documented
Pao has been given to 301 babies in the U.S. since 1979. 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 1991, with 29 recorded.
Babies named Pao, 1999
1 in 527,000
Pao over time, 1880–2025
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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.
How common is Pao?
Pao had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 1999, the last year it was published.
- Among all babies, 1999
- 1 in 527,000
- 7 of 3,692,373 births
- Among boys only
- 1 in 274,000
- <0.01% of boys
- Rank, 1999
- Unranked
- Fewer than 5 uses
- Coin-flip room size
- 365,624 kids
- Even odds of a second one
Where Pao sits on the popularity scale
Chance at least one other child shares the name
If the other children were drawn at random from the 1999 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.
Put another way: gather 365,624 children born in 1999 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Pao. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.
When Paos were born
Half of everyone ever recorded as Pao was born before 1988 — so the typical Pao is around 37 today.
- Biggest decade
- 1980s
- 58.1% of all use
- Born in the last 25 years
- 100.0%
- A modern name
- Recorded since 1950
- 301
- People you could plausibly meet
1980s — 58.1% of all recorded uses (175).
Is Pao 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 1991 (29)
- Years since peak
- 34
- Years
- Year-to-year steadiness
- Volatile
- 33.6% average annual change
Where Pao is used
Across 1910–2025, Pao was most concentrated in California — about 1 in 100,000 boys, against 1 in 153,433 across all states with data. It was least common in Wisconsin (1 in —).
Most concentrated
- 1California1 in 100,000
- 2Minnesota1 in 100,000
- 3Wisconsin1 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. Pao has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.
Pao around the world
Where Pao 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.
- France2004–2025#4,430in 2025
Popularity data from Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques. INSEE data under Licence Ouverte / Etalab 2.0.
Pao by the numbers
The raw record for each sex the name is used for.
Names similar to Pao
Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.
Sibling names for Pao
Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.