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Yamato

Boys' name

Possibly mountain, through 大和

Yamato has been given to 129 babies in the U.S. since 2000. 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 2007, with 11 recorded.

Babies named Yamato, 2022

1 in 677,000

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Yamato: meaning, origin, and history

Possibly mountain, through 大和

Japanese

What Yamato means

Yamato belongs to the name family reached through Yamato → 大和 → *yamatə. Its meaning is “mountain”.

Dictionary etymologyReferences, data & attribution

From Japanese 大和 (Yamato), itself of uncertain derivation, but likely related to 山 (yama, “mountains”). See Proto-Japonic *yamatə.

Excerpt from Wiktionary: Yamato (English) · CC BY-SA 4.0

Wiktionary material is available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Origin, language, and formation

Yamato is used in English. Its origins include Japanese.

Yamato comes through Japanese 大和 and Proto-Japonic *yamatə.

Related names and everyday forms

Related names include 大和 and *yamatə.

Pronunciation and spelling

In English, Yamato is pronounced /jɑˈmɑtoʊ/.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 129 boys were recorded with the name Yamato between 2000 and 2022. Its highest annual count was 11 in 2007; its best national rank was #7,562 in 2007.

How common is Yamato?

Yamato had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 2022, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 2022
1 in 677,000
5 of 3,385,755 births
Among boys only
1 in 349,000
<0.01% of boys
Rank, 2022
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
469,366 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Yamato 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 2022 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 469,366 children born in 2022 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Yamato. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Yamatos were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Yamato was born before 2010 — so the typical Yamato is around 15 today.

Median birth year
2010
About 15 years old
Biggest decade
2000s
48.1% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
100.0%
A modern name
Recorded since 1950
129
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

2000s — 48.1% of all recorded uses (62).

Is Yamato 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 2007 (11)
Years since peak
18
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Volatile
34.8% average annual change
Best rank ever
#7,562
2007

Spellings of Yamato

Yamato is not the most common spelling — Amado is, with 97.4% against Yamato's 2.6%.

  • Amado97.4%4,769
  • Yamato2.6%129

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 Yamato is used

Across 1910–2025, Yamato was most concentrated in California — about 1 in — boys, against 1 in 3,486,540 across all states with data.

00 per 100,000

Most concentrated

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

Yamato around the world

Where Yamato 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
    2012–2020
    #5,561
    in 2020
  • South Australia
    2011–2011
    #784
    in 2011

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.

Yamato 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
#7,562
2007
Peak year
2007
11 that year
First recorded
2000
Last recorded
2022
All-time count
129
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Yamato

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

YamariYameenYamaanMinatoYaminYamenYamaYamanYamirYamalHayatoMatoYamilYamelAmatoPlatoMasatoYamunguLiberatoDamatoCatoDonatoRenatoYamani

Sibling names for Yamato

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 Yamato

Top names of 2007, Yamato's peak yearThe 2000s in fullOther names that peaked in 2007Boys' names starting with Y