Colao
surname · Latin script
Meaning: A Chinese minister of state
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/ˈkoʊɫaʊ/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Colao is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the Philippines than in any other country.
- USUnited States1 in 759K(measured from records)
- BMBermuda≈1 in 24K
- JMJamaica≈1 in 81K
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- Philippines (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 181 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 24K (inferred from the name graph)
≈450 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Bermuda, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
A Chinese minister of state.
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Where in the world(measured from records)
Colao 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.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PH Philippines | — | ≈450 est. | ≈1 in 241K | — | Colao | 19 |
| IT Italy | — | ≈450 est. | ≈1 in 140K | listed | Colao | 19 |
| US United States | — | 438 | 1 in 759K | 473 | Colao | 181 |
| ES Spain | — | 272 | 1 in 184K | 272 | Colao | 52 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | ≈94 est. | ≈1 in 699K | — | Colao | 48 |
| PT Portugal | — | ≈57 est. | ≈1 in 180K | — | Colao | 9 |
| SG Singapore | — | ≈50 est. | ≈1 in 125K | — | Colao | 1 |
| JM Jamaica | — | ≈35 est. | ≈1 in 81K | — | Colao | 1 |
| BM Bermuda | #401 | ≈3 est. | ≈1 in 24K | — | Colao | 1 |
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 — Surname Frequency 2010; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos); INE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal); the italian-surnames-defelice-1978 register. 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 recorded senses(measured from records)
Colao is also recorded in 3 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In Italian, redução popular e coloquial de Nicolao.
as a nameDicionário dos sobrenomes italianos
In Italian, Variante di Cola
as a nameDizionario dei cognomi italiani
In Asturian, neuter singular of coláu
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Domenico Colaob. 1881ITItalian artist (1881–1943)
- Alberto Colaob. 1925ESSpanish editor, writer and translator
- Vittorio Colaob. 1961ITItalian businessman, CEO of Vodafone, Minister for Technological Innovation and Digital Transition
- Paolo Colaob. 1963ITItalian architect (born 1963)
- Vittorio Colaob. 1974ITItalian mathematician (born 1974)
- Jordyn Colaob. 1990USBeauty pageant winner
- Annamaria ColaoITItalian neuroendocrinologist
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).
How to address them(machine-generated)
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 16 sources across 9 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 473 | #48,236 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 470 | #43,290 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 438 | #48,256 |
| ES Spain | INE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal) | — | 272 | #13,030 |
| ES Spain | INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos) | — | 272 | #13,019 |
| IT Italy | Dizionario dei Cognomi Italiani (De Felice, 1978) | — | — | — |
| IT Italy | 意大利语姓名译名手册 (Xinhua Italian Name Manual) | — | — | — |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 2
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Cognomix.it (Nomix s.r.l.) — Italian surname origin dictionary
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- What does the name Colao mean, and where does it come from?
- A Chinese minister of state. Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- How do you pronounce Colao?
- A machine transcription gives /ˈkoʊɫaʊ/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does Colao have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 452 people named Colao in the Philippines, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled colao.
- How common is the name Colao?
- In the United States, the national register counted 438 people named Colao in 2010, about 1 in 759 thousand residents.
- How common is Colao compared with other names?
- In Bermuda, Colao is the 401st most common surname of 6,699 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Colao?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/colaoThe 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, “Colao” — the 401st most common surname in Bermuda. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.