Yao

Yao is the 3,235th most common surname in the United States, shared by 10,882 people at the 2020 census. That is about one person in 27,500.

By the numbers

People: 10,882
Rank: 3,235th
How common: 1 in 27,500
Per 100,000: 3.6

Where the name comes from

Origin Hokkien

From various romanizations of the cmn and nan-hbl pronunciations of Chinese 姚.

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

Who bears the name

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

Asian or Pacific Islander, not Hispanic 90.7%
Black, not Hispanic 3.6%
White, not Hispanic 2.9%
Two or more races, not Hispanic 2.2%
Hispanic or Latino 0.6%
American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic 0.02%

Notable people called Yao

Yao Ming (born 1980)Chinese basketball player
Andrew Yao (born 1946)computer scientist and computational theorist
Yao Wenyuan (1931–2005)Chinese politician
Chiung Yao (1938–2024)Taiwanese writer and film producer
Yao Chen (born 1979)Chinese actress
Zhong Yao (151–230)Chinese official and calligrapher
Yao Beina (1981–2015)Chinese female singer
Yao Lee (1922–2019)Chinese singer

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

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.