Given name & surname
Gao
Gao is a surname from Mandarin. It is used in English and Tagalog.
Meaning & origin
The story
Published U.S. birth records include this spelling as early as 1980. This is the earliest published observation available here, rather than a date for the name’s origin.
From dated birth records
Gao through the years
- Babies since 1880
- 375
- 0 boys · 375 girls
- Most popular year
- 1989
- 32 babies
- 2025
- 0
- Outside the ranked list
- 2021–25 vs 2016–20
- —
- Too few births to compare
By the numbers
The most recent published U.S. birth count for girls is 5 in 2008. Later missing counts do not mean the name went unused. Its largest published annual count for girls was 32 in 1989. Published U.S. population figures for this spelling include 655 as a first name in 2020; 21,908 as a surname in 2020.
From Social Security birth records and U.S. Census name counts for this exact spelling. Other spellings are counted separately.
Gao’s family of names
In Filipino usage, Gao as a surname shares an earlier linguistic root with KO. In English usage, Gao as a surname has a related form in KAO. In English usage, Gao as a surname has a related form in GAU.
Inner ring: nicknames and forms · outer: across languages.
Nicknames & forms 2
Diminutives, pet forms, short forms and variants used alongside the name.
Across languages 2
Equivalents and cognates in other languages, plus older forms it grew from.
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