Yaa

given name · Akan · Latin script

Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise

Yaa is a given name, most frequently recorded in Ghana. It appears chiefly in Akan and English, written in the Latin script. Recorded meaning: Bom on Thursday.

rarermore common
  • GHGhana1 in 5.6K◐
  • USUnited States1 in 483K
  • SESweden1 in 136K

carrying the name, one hue, darker where it is more common. Hover a country for its figure.

≈904 ●

across 8 countries

Sources
167 ●

7.5K records

Official registry-verified

1 in 136K ◐

Sweden

Meaning & origin●

Bom on Thursday

Sources 1

  • A Handbook of African Names

Where in the world●

Sorted by bearers counted by national registers, records where none counts.

Where Yaa is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
GH Ghana#1243,0451.9K rec.—61KYaa74
GB United Kingdom—866467 rec.—listedYaa67
US United States—6893.4K rec.1 in 483K689Yaa167
DE Germany—165410 rec.—1Yaa36
IN India—155223 rec.—5Yaa12
MY Malaysia—133221 rec.——Yaa15
CA Canada—114116 rec.—1Yaa31
AU Australia—113122 rec.—1Yaa16
NL Netherlands—9666 rec.1 in 180K96Yaa11
SE Sweden—75△20 rec.1 in 136K75—4
IT Italy—6376 rec.—1Yaa5
ZA South Africa—4549 rec.——Yaa6

Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table. How that works.

Languages●

  • Akan61K77%
  • English8.5K11%
  • Hindi2.2K3%
  • Swahili1.6K2%
  • Arabic1.1K1%
Show as table
Languages in which the name is recorded
NameRecordsNote
Akan60,50077%
English8,45611%
Hindi2,2193%
Swahili1,6132%
Arabic1,0501%

Language is read off each record's context, not declared by the bearer; a share is of all records for this spelling.

Other names spelled this way◐

Yaa is also recorded as 4 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • Swahili given name11K records spelled Yaa3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Ghana, Kenya, United States, India

    Also written Yàa

  • French given name1.8K records spelled Yaa37 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in France, United States, Ghana, Belgium

    Also written Yaà, Yàà, Ýaa, Yàa, Yäā

  • Spanish given name872 records spelled Yaa35 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Chile, United States, Ghana, Argentina

    Languages: Spanish, Portuguese

    Also written Yaã, Yáá, Ÿãá, Yåa, Ÿāā

  • Indonesian given name597 records spelled Yaa5 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Indonesia, Ghana, India, United States

    Also written Yaa', Yàå, Yàà, Yaâ

52 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Other recorded senses●

Yaa is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

  • In zpv, temazcal, a type of sweat lodge, usually built with adobe bricks

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • In English, The letter ي (y) in the Arabic script.

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • In aa, syncopic form of yayyá

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • In nv, to him/her/it

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • In tli, sea trout

    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●

0510151980199020002010202013 · 2005

Show as table
Yaa in SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present), United States, 1978–2024
Yearrecords
19785
19797
19805
19847
19858
19866
19918
19925
19936
19947
19966
19986
19999
20009
200112
200210
200311
20046
200513
20068
200712
20085
200910
20107
20115
20128
201310
20147
201511
20165
20176
201811
20226
20235
20247

US SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) — 35 years between 1978–2024. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.

Notable people with this name●

18001850190019502000Yaa Asantewaa, b. 1832Yaa Avoe, b. 1982Nana Yaa Serwaa Sarpong, b. 1983Yaa Gyasi, b. 1989Yaa Yaa, b. 1990Yaa Jackson, b. 2000

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 30 sources across 22 countries.

Official registers attesting Yaa
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
GH GhanaHeuristic parse of ghanacitizenship.com202661K#87
IN IndiaInstate — India surnames by state (real counts) from electoral rolls—3.1K#801
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex2020689#16,237
CI Côte d’Ivoirenomprenoms.ci — ranked Ivorian surname frequencies—405#1,188
NL NetherlandsMeertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (all-time BRP bearer counts, 2018)—96#5,669
SE SwedenSkatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population)—75#10,368
FI FinlandDVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup)—47#9,271
FI FinlandDVV — Etunimitilasto (Finnish given names register)—25—
FI FinlandDVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup)—15#40,845
US United StatesSSA — National Baby Names (1880–present)200513—
US United StatesSSA — National Baby Names (1880–present)200712—
US United StatesSSA — National Baby Names (1880–present)200112—

Reference works 3

  • 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 · 78 rows in the corpus for this spelling.

Frequently asked questions

How common is the name Yaa?
We estimate roughly 904 people bear Yaa (counting its spellings and scripts) across 8 countries in our records.
In which country does Yaa have the most bearers?
Yaa is most frequently recorded in Ghana, where it is most often spelled yaa.
How common is Yaa compared with other names?
In Ghana, Yaa is the 124th most common given name of 14,190 given names recorded there.
Is Yaa a male or female name?
Yaa is a female 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 Yaa mean?
Recorded meaning: Bom on Thursday
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/yaa

The 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

● measured from records◐ inferred from the name graph○ machine-generated

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, “Yaa” — the 124th most common given name in Ghana. Data snapshot 2026-09-12.

See how Yaa parses inside a full name →