Humanverse

Ayako

The girl's name Ayako has been in the national records since 1908, with 543 births to its name. Its origin is given as Japanese. It has not appeared in the national data since 2019. About 140 Ayakos are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 36.

Popularity, 1880–2025

Births per year, 1880 to 2025 0 8 16 24 32 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

girls named Ayako

By the numbers

Total US births
543
Estimated living today
140
Median age today
36
Peak year
1918
Best rank
1,411th
Rank in 2025
unranked
First recorded
1908

How old the living Ayakos are

Born with the name each year, and how many of them are alive today, 1880 to 2025 0 8 16 24 32 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

born that year still alive today

Of the 543 babies given the name since 1908, about 140 are alive — 25 in every hundred. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1989 and half after.

An estimate, not a count. SSA births aged forward through SSA cohort life tables, which know nothing about who left the country or arrived in it — so for a name that mostly came to America rather than being born in it, this is a floor rather than a figure. Where you fall among living Americans.

Where the name comes from

Origin Japanese

Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Notable Ayakos

People named Ayako with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).

Where Ayako is most common

  • HI15.2
  • CA0.40
  • WA0.22

Across the country Ayako is recorded 0.09 times per 100,000 births, so these are the states above that line. Only states with 50 or more recorded Ayakos are ranked here: below that a handful of births makes a rate that moves on chance alone.

  • HI156
  • CA135
  • WA12

Counts favour the big states, which is why the same few lead this list for almost every name.

Births recorded in each state since 1910. A name given to fewer than five babies in one state in one year is not published, so a name's quietest states are missing from this rather than showing zero. Browse names by state.

Names of 1918

The most popular girls’ names the year Ayako peaked:

All the names of 1918

Related names

Ayako against another name

Two names on one chart, with the year one overtook the other.

Compare Ayako with a name of your own

Try it on yourself

Source: US Social Security Administration, national and state baby-name files, 1880–2025. Counts include only births registered with the SSA, and names with fewer than five births in a year are not published. The living estimate applies SSA cohort life tables to those births; it counts people born in the United States, so it misses anyone who arrived later and anyone who has left.