Name Awesome

Tomoko

Girls' name

Wisdom, intellect or friend

Tomoko has been given to 128 babies in the U.S. since 1923. 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 10 recorded.

Babies named Tomoko, 1991

1 in 779,000

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Tomoko: meaning, origin, and history

Wisdom, intellect or friend

Japanese

What Tomoko means

Tomoko means “wisdom, intellect or friend”.

Documented naming usage and pronunciation

Tomoko is used in Japanese.

Another recorded pronunciation is /to̞.mo̞.ko̞/ for Tomoko.

Origin, language, and formation

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

Pronunciation and spelling

In Tagalog, Tomoko is pronounced /toˈmoko/.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 128 girls were recorded with the name Tomoko between 1923 and 1991. Its highest annual count was 10 in 1982; its best national rank was #3,997 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.

Wiktionary material is available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

How common is Tomoko?

Tomoko had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 1991, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 1991
1 in 779,000
5 of 3,892,928 births
Among girls only
1 in 375,000
<0.01% of girls
Rank, 1991
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
539,676 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Tomoko 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 1991 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 539,676 children born in 1991 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Tomoko. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Tomokos were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Tomoko was born before 1979 — so the typical Tomoko is around 46 today.

Median birth year
1979
About 46 years old
Biggest decade
1980s
39.8% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
84.4%
A modern name
Recorded since 1950
108
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1980s — 39.8% of all recorded uses (51).

Is Tomoko 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 (10)
Years since peak
43
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Shifting
18.3% average annual change
Best rank ever
#3,997
1925

Spellings of Tomoko

Tomoko is not the most common spelling — Tomeka is, with 34.7% against Tomoko's 1.2%.

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 Tomoko is used

Across 1910–2025, Tomoko was most concentrated in Hawaii — about 1 in 100,000 girls, against 1 in 1,647,465 across all states with data. It was least common in California (1 in —).

01 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1Hawaii1 in 100,000
  2. 2California1 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. Tomoko has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Tomoko around the world

Where Tomoko 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
    1978–1992
    #3,488
    in 1992
  • South Australia
    1972–1972
    #722
    in 1972

Popularity data from Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques and Consumer and Business Services (South Australia). INSEE data under Licence Ouverte / Etalab 2.0. CBS SA data under CC BY 4.0.

Tomoko 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
#3,997
1925
Peak year
1982
10 that year
First recorded
1923
Last recorded
1991
All-time count
128
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Tomoko

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

TomecaTomekoTomickaTommaTomomiTomirisTomaraTomiyaTommiaTomiaTomeekaMomokoTomeshaTomeikaTomakaTomicaTomrisTomoeTomiyeTomikiaMiyokoTomishaToyokoTomecia

Sibling names for Tomoko

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 Tomoko

Top names of 1982, Tomoko's peak yearThe 1980s in fullOther names that peaked in 1925Girls' names starting with T