Thao
given name · Vietnamese · Latin script
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
Thao is a given name, most frequently recorded in Vietnam, where it is the 32nd most common given name. It appears chiefly in Vietnamese and English, written in the Latin script. Recorded meaning: A member of an aboriginal people of central Taiwan.
- VNVietnam1 in 186◐
- USUnited States1 in 33K
- CACanada1 in 61K
carrying the name, one hue, darker where it is more common. Hover a country for its figure.
- ≈12K ●
- Sources
- 212 ●
- 1 in 9.5K ◐
across 9 countries
250K records
Official registry-verified
Iceland
Meaning & origin●
A member of an aboriginal people of central Taiwan.
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested across 12 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 | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| VN Vietnam | #32 | 456,671 | 189K rec. | — | listed | Thao | 212 |
| US United States | — | 10,133 | 55K rec. | 1 in 33K | 27K | Thao | 155 |
| FR France | — | 1,490 | — | 1 in 46K | 1.5K | — | — |
| CA Canada | — | 1,369 | 2.2K rec. | — | 6 | Thao | 44 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | 1,149 | 1.5K rec. | — | — | Thao | 33 |
| SE Sweden | — | 339△ | 51 rec. | 1 in 30K | 339 | — | 8 |
| MY Malaysia | — | 153 | 255 rec. | — | — | Thao | 9 |
| FI Finland | — | 146△ | 14 rec. | 1 in 38K | 495 | — | 5 |
| SG Singapore | — | 129 | 212 rec. | — | — | Thao | 13 |
| RU Russia | — | 117 | 151 rec. | — | — | Thao | 13 |
| AO Angola | #558 | 99 | 120 rec. | — | — | Thao | 2 |
| NO Norway | — | 89 | 91 rec. | — | 350 | Thao | 11 |
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table. How that works.
Languages●
- Vietnamese488K74%
- English82K12%
- 30K4%
- French9.6K1%
- Spanish8.7K1%
Show as table
| Name | Records | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Vietnamese | 487,649 | 74% |
| English | 82,241 | 12% |
| 29,741 | 4% | |
| French | 9,569 | 1% |
| Spanish | 8,699 | 1% |
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●
Thao 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.
In Swahili, thousand shilling
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Khmer, ji^ porcelain pot with a cover. Cflin
as a wordHeadley, Cambodian-English Dictionary, Volume I (ក-ភ)
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 |
|---|---|
| 1975 | 6 |
| 1976 | 10 |
| 1977 | 10 |
| 1978 | 14 |
| 1979 | 22 |
| 1980 | 26 |
| 1981 | 39 |
| 1982 | 35 |
| 1983 | 47 |
| 1984 | 58 |
| 1985 | 50 |
| 1986 | 45 |
| 1987 | 55 |
| 1988 | 31 |
| 1989 | 38 |
| 1990 | 51 |
| 1991 | 41 |
| 1992 | 48 |
| 1993 | 44 |
| 1994 | 45 |
| 1995 | 29 |
| 1996 | 37 |
| 1997 | 24 |
| 1998 | 27 |
| 1999 | 29 |
| 2000 | 20 |
| 2001 | 18 |
| 2002 | 16 |
| 2003 | 16 |
| 2004 | 11 |
| 2005 | 10 |
| 2006 | 8 |
| 2007 | 13 |
| 2008 | 12 |
| 2009 | 7 |
| 2010 | 10 |
| 2011 | 9 |
| 2012 | 5 |
| 2013 | 7 |
| 2014 | 7 |
| 2015 | 5 |
| 2017 | 5 |
| 2025 | 5 |
US SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) — 43 years between 1975–2025. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.
Notable people with this name●
- Cao Caob. 155CNnot in their usual nameChinese warlord and statesman (155–220)
- Tsao Changb. 1942USnot in their usual namephysicist
- Jian Taob. 2001CNnot in their usual nameChinese association football player (born 2001)
- Liu Hainot in their usual nameTaoist immortal
- Zhu Caonot in their usual nameTang dynasty person CBDB = 16602
- Zhou Caonot in their usual nameSong dynasty person CBDB = 502
- Bao Taonot in their usual nameHan dynasty soldier, brother of Bao Xin
- Li Caonot in their usual nameTang dynasty person CBDB = 193359
- Yang Caonot in their usual nameMing dynasty person CBDB = 284089
- Chen Caonot in their usual nameMing dynasty person CBDB = 242668
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 43 sources across 23 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 27K | #1,289 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 23K | #1,536 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 15K | #2,153 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 10K | #2,197 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 1.9K | #2,197 |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des prénoms (1900–2024) | 2024 | 1.5K | #597 |
| FI Finland | DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup) | — | 495 | #2,171 |
| NO Norway | SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population) | — | 350 | #3,193 |
| SE Sweden | Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population) | — | 339 | #3,613 |
| FI Finland | DVV — Etunimitilasto (Finnish given names register) | — | 146 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1991 | 109 | — |
| NL Netherlands | Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (all-time BRP bearer counts, 2018) | — | 86 | #6,067 |
Reference works 3
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- 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 · 197 rows in the corpus for this spelling.
Frequently asked questions
- How common is the name Thao?
- We estimate roughly 12 thousand people bear Thao (counting its spellings and scripts) across 9 countries in our records.
- In which country does Thao have the most bearers?
- Thao is most frequently recorded in Vietnam, where it is most often spelled thao.
- How common is Thao compared with other names?
- In Vietnam, Thao is the 32nd most common given name of 72,115 given names recorded there.
- Is Thao a male or female name?
- Thao is recorded for both men and women. We don't publish a percentage split: a record's gender belongs to the person and is attached to every given name on that record, so names in cultures where a name string also carries a parent's or spouse's given name pick up large cross-gender counts.
- What does the name Thao mean?
- Recorded meaning: A member of an aboriginal people of central Taiwan.
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/thaoThe 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, “Thao” — the 32nd most common given name in Vietnam. Data snapshot 2026-09-12.