Kao

6,261 people in the United States were counted with the surname Kao in the 2020 census, making it the 5,379th most common in the country. That is about one person in 47,700.

By the numbers

People: 6,261
Rank: 5,379th
How common: 1 in 47,700
Per 100,000: 2.1

Who bears the name

How people with the surname Kao described their own race and Hispanic origin at the 2020 census:

Asian or Pacific Islander, not Hispanic 91.8%
Two or more races, not Hispanic 3.6%
White, not Hispanic 2.8%
Hispanic or Latino 0.9%
Black, not Hispanic 0.8%
American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic 0.03%

Notable people called Kao

Charles K. Kao (1933–2018)Hong Kong-British-American physicist
Archie Kao (born 1969)American actor

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

Also a first name

Kao has been given to 719 American babies as a first name since 1980, peaking in 1981. See it as a given name.

Try it on yourself

Source: US Census Bureau, Frequently Occurring Surnames, 2020. The Census describes the file as the surnames borne by 100 or more people; rarer names are not published. The line is not quite exact, and 617 published names come in under it, the smallest at 92 people. Race and Hispanic origin are self-reported. Rates are worked out against the 298.9 million people the file's own figures are calculated on, which is fewer than the census counted in all: the difference is everyone whose surname was too rare to publish.