Given name
Yoko
“a positive child; good girl”
Yoko is used as a given name. One Japanese interpretation is “a positive child; good girl.”
Original Japaneseようこ
Meaning & origin
What it means
One Japanese interpretation is “a positive child; good girl.”
Where it comes from
An origin associated with this spelling is Japanese.
The story
Published U.S. birth records include this spelling as early as 1923. This is the earliest published observation available here, rather than a date for the name’s origin.
From dated birth records
Yoko through the years
- Babies since 1880
- 476
- 0 boys · 476 girls
- Most popular year
- 1981
- 24 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 2021. Later missing counts do not mean the name went unused. Its largest published annual count for girls was 24 in 1981. Published U.S. population figures for this spelling include 4,033 as a first name in 2020.
From Social Security birth records and U.S. Census name counts for this exact spelling. Other spellings are counted separately.
Yoko’s family of names
Yoko has a related form in Yo. In English usage, Yoko was borrowed from the Japanese form ようこ.
Inner ring: spellings · middle: nicknames and forms · outer: across languages.
Nicknames & forms 2
Diminutives, pet forms, short forms and variants used alongside the name.
Spellings & scripts 2
The same name written differently, including transliterations into other scripts.
Across languages 1
Equivalents and cognates in other languages, plus older forms it grew from.
People named Yoko
- Yoko AlenderEstonian architect and politician (born 1979)
- Yoko AkinoJapanese actressborn 1957
- Madam YokoLeader of the Mende people in Sierra Leone1849–1906
Listed by how widely each person is written about, which says nothing about the name itself.
Similar names
If you love Yoko, these share its style, era, origin or sound, from outside its own family.
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Taniko is a feminine given name from Japanese.
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