Yaw
given name · English · Latin script
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Yaw is a given name, most frequently recorded in Ghana, where it is the 98th most common given name. It appears chiefly in English and Malay, written in the Latin script. Recorded meaning: The rotation of an aircraft, ship, or missile about its vertical axis so as to cause the longitudinal axis of the aircraft, ship, or missile to deviate from the flight line or heading in its horizonta.
- GHGhana1 in 1.7K◐
- MYMalaysia1 in 9.4K
- GBUnited Kingdom1 in 89K
carrying the name, one hue, darker where it is more common. Hover a country for its figure.
- ≈1.7K ●
- Sources
- 221 ●
- 1 in 102K ◐
across 6 countries
46K records
Official registry-verified
Sweden
Meaning & origin●
The rotation of an aircraft, ship, or missile about its vertical axis so as to cause the longitudinal axis of the aircraft, ship, or missile to deviate from the flight line or heading in its horizontal plane.
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.
Where in the world●
Sorted by bearers counted by national registers, records where none counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GH Ghana | #98 | 9,984 | 6.3K rec. | — | 96K | Yaw | 107 |
| MY Malaysia | #731 | 6,935 | 7.9K rec. | — | — | Yaw | 53 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | 2,319 | 1.9K rec. | — | — | Yaw | 96 |
| US United States | — | 1,293 | 24K rec. | 1 in 257K | 1.5K | Yaw | 221 |
| AU Australia | — | 578 | 840 rec. | — | 1 | Yaw | 49 |
| DE Germany | — | 467 | 511 rec. | — | 1 | Yaw | 60 |
| SG Singapore | — | 361 | 634 rec. | — | — | Yaw | 44 |
| IT Italy | — | 303 | 554 rec. | — | — | Yaw | 24 |
| EG Egypt | — | 277 | 273 rec. | — | — | Yaw | 5 |
| ZA South Africa | — | 239 | 263 rec. | — | — | Yaw | 23 |
| CA Canada | — | 222 | 414 rec. | — | — | Yaw | 46 |
| NL Netherlands | — | 129 | 184 rec. | 1 in 134K | 129 | Yaw | 19 |
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table. How that works.
Languages●
- English28K60%
- Malay4.4K9%
- 1.4K3%
- Burmese1.4K3%
- Spanish1.2K3%
Show as table
| Name | Records | Note |
|---|---|---|
| English | 28,214 | 60% |
| Malay | 4,429 | 9% |
| 1,440 | 3% | |
| Burmese | 1,421 | 3% |
| Spanish | 1,240 | 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●
Yaw 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 Akan, V. {red. yeyaw] Ak. ye, to abuse, chide, scold, upbraid, revile, insult, affront; pr. 409.442.3o32f. oyaw no, syn. 6h6ro no, obo no ahohora, gbono adapa, osopano &c
as a wordDictionary of the Asante and Fante Language called Tshi (Chwee, Twi)
In ine-pro, part./adv.: already
as a wordStarLing Tower of Babel etymological databases (Starostin et al.)
In srn, a male given name from Akan, feminine equivalent Yaba, given to a male born on a Thursday
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In pbv, market
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In woe, mouth
as a wordAustronesian Comparative Dictionary (ACD), CLDF v2.0
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 |
|---|---|
| 1973 | 6 |
| 1978 | 10 |
| 1979 | 5 |
| 1980 | 5 |
| 1981 | 5 |
| 1983 | 5 |
| 1985 | 5 |
| 1986 | 10 |
| 1988 | 7 |
| 1990 | 8 |
| 1991 | 11 |
| 1992 | 9 |
| 1993 | 9 |
| 1995 | 7 |
| 1996 | 8 |
| 1997 | 18 |
| 1998 | 8 |
| 1999 | 12 |
| 2000 | 10 |
| 2001 | 14 |
| 2002 | 16 |
| 2003 | 12 |
| 2004 | 13 |
| 2005 | 8 |
| 2006 | 12 |
| 2007 | 7 |
| 2008 | 13 |
| 2009 | 9 |
| 2010 | 10 |
| 2011 | 11 |
| 2012 | 13 |
| 2013 | 7 |
| 2014 | 5 |
| 2015 | 12 |
| 2016 | 9 |
| 2017 | 8 |
| 2018 | 8 |
| 2019 | 9 |
| 2020 | 10 |
| 2021 | 8 |
| 2022 | 9 |
| 2023 | 6 |
| 2024 | 12 |
| 2025 | 6 |
US SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) — 44 years between 1973–2025. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.
Notable people with this name●
- Yaw Osei Adutwumb. 1964GHGhanaian politician
- Yaw Prekob. 1974GHGhanian footballer
- Yaw Shin Leongb. 1976SGSingaporean businessman
- Yaw Antwib. 1985GHGhanaian footballer
- Yaw Frimpongb. 1986GHGhanaian footballer
- Yaw Ihle Amankwahb. 1988NOGhanaian-Norwegian footballer
- Emmanuel Donkorb. 1994GHnot in their usual namebadminton player
- Yaw Yeboahb. 1997GHGhanaian association football player
- Yaw Annorb. 1997GHGhanaian association football player
- Yaw Ackahb. 1999GHGhanian footballer
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 41 sources across 23 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| GH Ghana | Heuristic parse of ghanacitizenship.com | 2026 | 96K | #47 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 1.5K | #18,405 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 1.5K | #18,766 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 1.3K | #18,892 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 1.3K | #10,203 |
| GY Guyana | Guyana — Official List of Electors July 2025 | 2025 | 238 | #390 |
| NL Netherlands | Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (all-time BRP bearer counts, 2018) | — | 129 | #3,794 |
| IN India | Instate — India surnames by state (real counts) from electoral rolls | — | 122 | #1,138 |
| ES Spain | INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos) | — | 103 | #15,455 |
| ES Spain | INE — Nombres más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal) | — | 102 | #7,296 |
| SE Sweden | Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population) | — | 100 | #8,562 |
| FI Finland | DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup) | — | 86 | #5,641 |
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 · 114 rows in the corpus for this spelling.
Frequently asked questions
- How common is the name Yaw?
- We estimate roughly 1.7 thousand people bear Yaw (counting its spellings and scripts) across 6 countries in our records.
- In which country does Yaw have the most bearers?
- Yaw is most frequently recorded in Ghana, where it is most often spelled yaw.
- How common is Yaw compared with other names?
- In Ghana, Yaw is the 98th most common given name of 14,190 given names recorded there.
- Is Yaw a male or female name?
- Yaw 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 Yaw mean?
- Recorded meaning: The rotation of an aircraft, ship, or missile about its vertical axis so as to cause the longitudinal axis of the aircraft, ship, or missile to deviate from the flight line or heading in its horizonta…
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/yawThe 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, “Yaw” — the 98th most common given name in Ghana. Data snapshot 2026-09-12.