Humanverse

Hanako

Hanako is a girl's name that peaked in 1921, when it was the 2,048th most popular in the United States. In 2025 it ranked 9,457th. About 190 Hanakos are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 22.

Popularity, 1880–2025

Births per year, 1880 to 2025 0 5 10 15 20 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

girls named Hanako

By the numbers

Total US births
397
Estimated living today
190
Median age today
22
Peak year
1921
Best rank
2,048th
Rank in 2025
9,457th
First recorded
1915

How old the living Hanakos are

Born with the name each year, and how many of them are alive today, 1880 to 2025 0 5 10 15 20 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

born that year still alive today

Of the 397 babies given the name since 1915, about 190 are alive — 48 in every hundred. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 2003 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.

Notable Hanakos

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

Where Hanako is most common

Relative to how many babies each state records, Hanako is most concentrated in Hawaii (265.4×), California (1.8×).

Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.

Names of 1921

The most popular girls’ names the year Hanako peaked:

All the names of 1921

Hanako elsewhere

CountrySpelling BirthsBest rank
France girls Hanako 20 8,014th
England and Wales girls Hanako 15 4,524th

Counts come from each country's own records and are not comparable with the US figures above, which cover different years and a different definition of a recorded name. Where a country writes the name several ways, the spellings are added together and the most common is shown. A row marked name registrations is counting something else: Portugal ranks each of a child's two given names separately, so a girl registered Maria Leonor is in both the Maria row and the Leonor row, and that figure is not a number of children.

Related names

Hanako against another name

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

Compare Hanako 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.