Name Awesome

Wataru

Boys' name

Wade, ford or extend, stretch

Wataru has been given to 142 babies in the U.S. since 1915. 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 1919, with 15 recorded.

Babies named Wataru, 2015

1 in 740,000

Wataru over time, 1880–2025

Boys
05101518801900192019401960198020002020

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Wataru: meaning, origin, and history

Wade, ford or extend, stretch

Deeper origin not confirmed in the cited records

What Wataru means

Wataru means “wade, ford or extend, stretch”.

Documented naming usage and pronunciation

Wataru is used in Japanese.

Another recorded pronunciation is /ɰᵝä.tä.ɾɯᵝ/ for Wataru.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 142 boys were recorded with the name Wataru between 1915 and 2015. Its highest annual count was 15 in 1919; its best national rank was #2,146 in 1919.

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.

How common is Wataru?

Wataru had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 2015, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 2015
1 in 740,000
5 of 3,701,574 births
Among boys only
1 in 383,000
<0.01% of boys
Rank, 2015
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
513,148 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Wataru 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 2015 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 513,148 children born in 2015 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Wataru. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Watarus were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Wataru was born before 1989 — so the typical Wataru is around 36 today.

Median birth year
1989
About 36 years old
Biggest decade
1990s
35.2% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
44.4%
Spread across generations
Recorded since 1950
79
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1990s — 35.2% of all recorded uses (50).

Is Wataru 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 1919 (15)
Years since peak
106
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Volatile
25.8% average annual change
Best rank ever
#2,146
1919

Spellings of Wataru

Wataru is not the most common spelling — Amaru is, with 87.4% against Wataru's 12.6%.

  • Amaru87.4%984
  • Wataru12.6%142

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 Wataru is used

Across 1910–2025, Wataru was most concentrated in Hawaii — about 1 in 20,000 boys, against 1 in 562,469 across all states with data. It was least common in California (1 in —).

05 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1Hawaii1 in 20,000
  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. Wataru has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Wataru 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
#2,146
1919
Peak year
1919
15 that year
First recorded
1915
Last recorded
2015
All-time count
142
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Wataru

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

WattsHikaruWattsonSubaruHaruMasaruWatsonWattWatkinsAmaruWatieWattieWatlerWatsynMasaharuYoshiharuMaruOmaruToshiharuNaru

Sibling names for Wataru

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 Wataru

Top names of 1919, Wataru's peak yearThe 1910s in fullOther names that peaked in 1919Boys' names starting with WJapanese Boy Names