Yu
Yu reached its high-water mark in 2002 at number 4,502, and has been recorded 830 times in all. It is given to both boys and girls. In 2025 it ranked 8,243rd. About 810 Yus are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 24.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Yu boys named Yu
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 830
- Estimated living today
- 810
- Median age today
- 24
- Peak year
- 2002
- Best rank
- 4,502nd
- Rank in 2025
- 8,243rd
- First recorded
- 1969
- Girls / boys
- 381 / 449
How old the living Yus are
born that year still alive today
Of the 830 babies given the name since 1969, about 810 are alive — 98 in every hundred. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 2001 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 Yus
- Han Yu (768–824)Chinese historian, poet, philosopher and politician
- Yu Kobayashi (born 1987)Japanese association football player
- Guan Yu (160–220)Chinese general serving warlord Liu Bei
- Xiang Yu (231 BC–201 BC)Chinese military leader
- Li Yu (1611–1680)Chinese writer（1611–1680）
- Yu Hua (born 1960)Chinese writer
- Yu Kil-chun (1856–1914)Korean politician
- Yu Aoi (born 1985)Japanese actress and businessperson
People named Yu with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Yu is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Yu is most concentrated in New York (10.0×), California (1.9×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 2002
The most popular boys’ names the year Yu peaked:
Yu elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| England and Wales boys | Yu | 325 | 809th |
| England and Wales girls | Yu | 318 | 1,075th |
| France boys | Yu | 50 | 6,245th |
| France girls | Yu | 45 | 7,140th |
| Ireland girls | Yu | 37 | 612th |
| Scotland girls | Yu | 34 | 458th |
| Ireland boys | Yu | 29 | 404th |
| Scotland boys | Yu | 26 | 483rd |
| Belgium girls | Yu | 5 | 1,436th |
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.
Yu among the living
How many people each country's register counts under the name, rather than how many were given it in any one year. Each register was read on one date, and they are not the same date.
| Country | Spelling | First forename | Any forename |
|---|---|---|---|
| Finland girls | Yu | 21 | 50 |
| Finland boys | Yu | 16 | 30 |
A count of people on a register – Finland on 4 August 2026 – and not of births, so it cannot be compared with the figures above. Names with very few bearers are withheld, and a dash in the first-forename column means the register would not say rather than that nobody goes by it.
Where Yu lives in Spain
Not a count of births but of people: 405 men called Yu and 384 women called Yu were living in Spain on 1 January 2025, of every age, born in any year. Where they live is not spread evenly.
Men: the provinces where it is densest
| Province | Spelling | People | Per thousand | Place there |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Madrid | Yu | 131 | 0.038 | 1,374 |
| Barcelona | Yu | 102 | 0.035 | 1,477 |
| Alicante/Alacant | Yu | 23 | 0.023 | 2,416 |
| Tarragona | Yu | 9 | 0.021 | 2,332 |
| Toledo | Yu | 7 | 0.018 | 2,083 |
| Valencia/València | Yu | 25 | 0.018 | 2,496 |
Listed in 13 of Spain's 52 provinces. In the other 39 it is either held by fewer than 5 people – the point below which the source withholds a name – or it fell past the 5,000 names the source will print for one province. Neither means nobody there is called it. The rate is the source's own, not a share worked out here.
Women: the provinces where it is densest
| Province | Spelling | People | Per thousand | Place there |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Barcelona | Yu | 113 | 0.037 | 1,454 |
| Madrid | Yu | 114 | 0.031 | 1,593 |
| Valencia/València | Yu | 34 | 0.024 | 1,833 |
| Santa Cruz de Tenerife | Yu | 11 | 0.020 | 3,086 |
| Zaragoza | Yu | 10 | 0.020 | 2,123 |
| Balears, Illes | Yu | 9 | 0.014 | 3,180 |
Listed in 13 of Spain's 52 provinces. In the other 39 it is either held by fewer than 5 people – the point below which the source withholds a name – or it fell past the 5,000 names the source will print for one province. Neither means nobody there is called it. The rate is the source's own, not a share worked out here.
Related names
Yu against another name
Two names on one chart, with the year one overtook the other.
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.