Given name & surname · also Wade–Giles

Shao

Shao is a surname from Wade–Giles, ultimately from Chinese. It is used in English and Tagalog.

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Modern

Meaning & origin

Where it comes from

Shao comes from Wade–Giles, and ultimately from Chinese.

Adapted from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0)

The story

Published U.S. birth records include this spelling as early as 1990. This is the earliest published observation available here, rather than a date for the name’s origin.

From dated birth records

Shao through the years

Babies since 1880: 7; 7 boys · 0 girls
Most popular year: 1990; 7 babies
2025: 0; Outside the ranked list
2021–25 vs 2016–20: —; Too few births to compare

Shao in U.S. Social Security birth records, 1990–2025, per million boys born. Years with fewer than five births for a sex are not published and appear as zero. Use the arrow keys to step through years.

By the numbers

The most recent published U.S. birth count for boys is 7 in 1990. Later missing counts do not mean the name went unused. Published U.S. population figures for this spelling include 1,399 as a first name in 2020; 5,929 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.

Shao’s family of names

Walk Shao’s family in the name graph

The ring: across languages.

Hover or tab through the constellation to see how each name is related. Bigger dots are names more people in the U.S. share.

Across languages 3

Equivalents and cognates in other languages, plus older forms it grew from.

People named Shao

Shao BingChinese actorborn 1968

Listed by how widely each person is written about, which says nothing about the name itself.

Similar names

If you love Shao, these share its style, era, origin or sound, from outside its own family.

Chinese · Modern

Sibling ideas

Names that share Shao’s feel without repeating its first letter or rhyming with it.

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