Tāo

given name · Latin script

Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published

Tāo is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country. Recorded meaning: From the Wade–Giles romanization of the Mandarin pronunciation of Chinese 道 (tao⁴).

rarermore common
  • CNChina≈1 in 1.3K(inferred from the name graph)
  • VNVietnam≈1 in 5.5K
  • TWTaiwan≈1 in 11K

carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Where a country counts another spelling of the name rather than Tāo itself, the figure is that spelling’s, and it is named. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.

China (inferred from the name graph)

≈1,100,000 people, est.

3 (measured from records)

recorded for this name

Sources
338 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

≈1 in 1.3K (inferred from the name graph)

China, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Spellings & scripts(measured from records)

TāoLatin(measured from records)
เตThai(measured from records)
투어Hangul(measured from records)

6 other spellings are counted as the same name:

Locally spelled Tao in US United States, VN Vietnam, CN China and 3 more and Teh in MY Malaysia.

Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.

Meaning & origin(measured from records)

From the Wade–Giles romanization of the Mandarin pronunciation of Chinese 道 (tao⁴).

Sources 6

  • 25,000 nombres de bebé. La mejor guía para escoger el nombre adecuado
  • A concise dictionary of first names
  • Baby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…
  • Wiktionary
  • Nordic Names

Attested across 29 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Tāo counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.

Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.

Where Tāo is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
CN China—≈1,100,000 est.≈1 in 1.3K—Tao174
VN Vietnam#265≈18,000 est.≈1 in 5.5KlistedTao101
MY Malaysia—≈17,000 est.≈1 in 2K—Teh123
ID Indonesia—≈16,000 est.≈1 in 17KlistedTao78
US United States—4,7591 in 70K6KTao338
TW Taiwan—≈2,100 est.≈1 in 11K—Tao80
HK Hong Kong#425≈930 est.≈1 in 7.8K—Tao59

Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.

Registers cited: Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020. Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.

Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).

Other names spelled this way(inferred from the name graph)

Tāo is also recorded as another name, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • a separate name8 spellings in the group

    Also written Tạo, Tao, T'Ao, Táo, Tão

2 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Notable people with this name(measured from records)

19401960198020002020Song Tao, b. 1955Liu Tao, b. 1975Jiang Guangtao, b. 1976Zhao Tao, b. 1977Ling Tao, b. 1989Wang Tao, b. 1990Zhang Tao, b. 1991Keung To, b. 1999Jian Tao, b. 2001
  • Song Taob. 1955CNdiplomat of the People's Republic of China
  • Liu Taob. 1975CNChinese Go player
  • Jiang Guangtaob. 1976CNnot in their usual nameChinese voice actor
  • Zhao Taob. 1977CNChinese actress
  • Ling Taob. 1989TWTaiwanese politician
  • Wang Taob. 1990CNChinese Go player
  • Zhang Taob. 1991CNChinese Go player born 1991
  • Keung Tob. 1999CNnot in their usual nameChinese singer and actor
  • Jian Taob. 2001CNChinese association football player (born 2001)
  • Bao TaoHan dynasty soldier, brother of Bao Xin

The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).

Evidence(measured from records)

No register attests this spelling yet

None of the official registers or reference works in our corpus lists Tāo under this spelling. The statistics on this page rest on person records, and the related names are inferred from the name graph.

Frequently asked questions

What does the name Tāo mean, and where does it come from?
From the Wade–Giles romanization of the Mandarin pronunciation of Chinese 道 (tao⁴). Recorded by 25,000 nombres de bebé. La mejor guía para escoger el nombre adecuado and A concise dictionary of first names and 4 other sources.
Is Tāo a male or female name?
Tāo is recorded for both men and women. We don't publish a percentage split: a record's gender belongs to the person and is attached to every given name on that record, so names in cultures where a name string also carries a parent's or spouse's given name pick up large cross-gender counts.
In which country does Tāo have the most bearers?
Mondonomo estimates about 1.1 million people named Tāo in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled tao.
How common is the name Tāo?
In the United States, the national register counted 4,759 people named Tāo in 2020, about 1 in 70 thousand residents.
How common is Tāo compared with other names?
In Vietnam, Tāo is the 265th most common given name of 73,918 given names recorded there.

What do you want to know about Tāo?

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Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/t%C4%81o

The payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.

About this data

measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated

These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.

Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.

Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.

Cite this page Mondonomo, “Tāo” — the 265th most common given name in Vietnam. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Tāo parses inside a full name →