Joo
given name · Indonesian · Latin script
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Joo is a given name, most frequently recorded in Malaysia, where it is the 11th most common given name. It appears chiefly in Indonesian and Malay, written in the Latin script. Recorded meaning: archaic spelling variant of Jo (see Jo).
- MYMalaysia1 in 166◐
- IDIndonesia1 in 237
- PTPortugal1 in 3.9K
carrying the name, one hue, darker where it is more common. Hover a country for its figure.
- ≈1.3K ●
- Sources
- 85 ●
- 1 in 56K ◐
across 5 countries
784K records
Official registry-verified
Sweden
Meaning & origin●
archaic spelling variant of Jo (see Jo).
Sources 1
- Dictionary of American Family Names
Attested across 5 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world●
Sorted by bearers counted by national registers, records where none counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MY Malaysia | #11 | 391,335 | 388K rec. | — | — | Joo | 69 |
| ID Indonesia | #29 | 383,039 | 383K rec. | — | — | Joo | 45 |
| PT Portugal | #338 | 2,155 | 2K rec. | — | — | Joo | 30 |
| VN Vietnam | #949 | 1,595 | 366 rec. | — | — | Joo | 34 |
| US United States | — | 1,009 | 1.4K rec. | 1 in 330K | 3.3K | Joo | 85 |
| SG Singapore | #534 | 949 | 814 rec. | — | — | Joo | 65 |
| TH Thailand | — | 188 | 181 rec. | — | — | Joo | 45 |
| SE Sweden | — | 182△ | 6 rec. | 1 in 56K | 182 | — | 3 |
| BR Brazil | — | 100 | 7.3K rec. | 1 in 2.1M | 548 | Joo | 73 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | 91 | 88 rec. | — | — | Joo | 25 |
| PH Philippines | — | 84 | 47 rec. | — | — | Joo | 8 |
| ZA South Africa | — | 40 | 60 rec. | — | — | Joo | 3 |
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table. How that works.
Languages●
- Indonesian385K42%
- Malay374K41%
- English49K5%
- Korean41K4%
- Portuguese27K3%
Show as table
| Name | Records | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Indonesian | 384,843 | 42% |
| Malay | 374,286 | 41% |
| English | 49,410 | 5% |
| Korean | 40,696 | 4% |
| Portuguese | 26,693 | 3% |
Language is read off each record's context, not declared by the bearer; a share is of all records for this spelling.
Other recorded senses●
Joo is also recorded in 2 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
variant of Chu.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
In Finnish, yeah, yes
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.
Over time●
Show as table
| Year | records |
|---|---|
| 1999 | 13 |
| 2000 | 13 |
| 2001 | 10 |
| 2002 | 10 |
| 2003 | 10 |
| 2004 | 10 |
| 2005 | 11 |
| 2006 | 11 |
| 2007 | 11 |
| 2008 | 11 |
| 2009 | 11 |
| 2010 | 10 |
| 2011 | 10 |
| 2012 | 11 |
| 2013 | 11 |
| 2014 | 11 |
| 2015 | 10 |
| 2016 | 10 |
| 2017 | 12 |
| 2018 | 11 |
| 2019 | 12 |
| 2020 | 12 |
SE SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023) — 22 years between 1999–2020. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.
Notable people with this name●
- Gyeongjongb. 955not in their usual namethe 5th king of Goryeo (955–981, r. 975–981)
- Joo Krausb. 1966DEGerman trumpeter
- Kim Joo-Jinb. 1986KRSouth Korean judoka
- Yoon Joob. 1989KRSouth Korean actress
- Kim Ju-sikb. 1992KPnot in their usual nameNorth Korean pair skater
- Taehab. 1995KRnot in their usual nameSouth Korean singer, member of Berry Good
- Joo Hyun-myeongb. 1997KRSouth Korean race walker
- Chea Song-joob. 1998KRSouth Korean figure skater
- Ju Lib. 2000CNnot in their usual nameMaterials Science researcher
- Joo Han Kimb. 2000KRresearcher
The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).
Evidence●
Attested in 42 sources across 23 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 3.3K | #9,554 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 3.1K | #10,324 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 2.2K | #12,945 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 1K | #8,666 |
| IN India | Instate — India surnames by state (real counts) from electoral rolls | — | 715 | #6,817 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 654 | #8,666 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Nomes (census name API) | — | 548 | #13,521 |
| BR Brazil | Brasil.IO genero-nomes (IBGE Censo 2010 mirror, CC-BY-SA) | — | 533 | #5,893 |
| SE Sweden | Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population) | — | 182 | #5,598 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 108 | #59,814 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror) | 2022 | 100 | — |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 88 | #41,307 |
Reference works 4
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-09-12 data build · 136 rows in the corpus for this spelling.
Frequently asked questions
- How common is the name Joo?
- We estimate roughly 1.3 thousand people bear Joo (counting its spellings and scripts) across 5 countries in our records.
- In which country does Joo have the most bearers?
- Joo is most frequently recorded in Malaysia, where it is most often spelled joo.
- How common is Joo compared with other names?
- In Malaysia, Joo is the 11th most common given name of 325,158 given names recorded there.
- Is Joo a male or female name?
- Joo is a male name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
- What does the name Joo mean?
- Recorded meaning: archaic spelling variant of Jo (see Jo).
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/jooThe same payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. Rate-limited for casual use. Bulk access and licensing.
About this data
Data snapshot . Figures are rebuilt periodically and will change.
Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.
Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.
Cite this page Mondonomo, “Joo” — the 11th most common given name in Malaysia. Data snapshot 2026-09-12.