Name Awesome

Yao

Boys' name

Form of Yaw

Yao has been given to 108 babies in the U.S. since 1984. 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 1984, with 10 recorded.

Babies named Yao, 2023

1 in 663,000

Yao over time, 1880–2025

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Yao: meaning, origin, and history

Form of Yaw

Deeper origin not confirmed in the cited records

What Yao means

Yao is a form of Yaw.

Documented naming usage and pronunciation

Yao is used in Ewe.

Meaning behind the documented name family

The name developed through Yao → Yaw. The family’s meaning is “born on Thursday”, recorded in the naming reference for Yaw.

Related names and everyday forms

Related names include Yaw.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 108 boys were recorded with the name Yao between 1984 and 2023. Its highest annual count was 10 in 1984; its best national rank was #4,206 in 1984.

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 Yao?

Yao had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 2023, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 2023
1 in 663,000
5 of 3,314,783 births
Among boys only
1 in 342,000
<0.01% of boys
Rank, 2023
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
459,528 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Yao 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 2023 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 459,528 children born in 2023 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Yao. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Yaos were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Yao was born before 2005 — so the typical Yao is around 20 today.

Median birth year
2005
About 20 years old
Biggest decade
2000s
38.9% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
69.4%
A modern name
Recorded since 1950
108
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

2000s — 38.9% of all recorded uses (42).

Is Yao 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 1984 (10)
Years since peak
41
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Shifting
17.1% average annual change
Best rank ever
#4,206
1984

Where Yao is used

Across 1910–2025, Yao was most concentrated in California — about 1 in — boys, against 1 in 1,584,791 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. Yao has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Yao around the world

Where Yao 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.

  • England & Wales
    2010–2023
    #4,992
    in 2023
  • France
    1978–2025
    #2,437
    in 2025
  • Canada
    2001–2020
    #2,570
    in 2020
  • South Australia
    1993–2009
    #708
    in 2009

Popularity data from Office for National Statistics, Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques, Statistics Canada and Consumer and Business Services (South Australia). ONS data under Open Government Licence v3.0. INSEE data under Licence Ouverte / Etalab 2.0. StatCan data under Statistics Canada Open Licence. CBS SA data under CC BY 4.0.

Yao 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
#4,206
1984
Peak year
1984
10 that year
First recorded
1984
Last recorded
2023
All-time count
108
Count in 2025
Under 5

Sibling names for Yao

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 Yao

Top names of 1984, Yao's peak yearThe 1980s in fullOther names that peaked in 1984Boys' names starting with Y