Yen
given name · Latin script
Meaning, in English: The unit of Japanese currency (symbol: ¥) since 1871, divided into 100 sen
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/jɛŋ˧˧/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Yen is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Vietnam than in any other country, where it is the 43rd most common given name.
- VNVietnam≈1 in 367(inferred from the name graph)
- MYMalaysia≈1 in 1.3K
- SGSingapore≈1 in 4.8K
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 Yen 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.
- Vietnam (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 184 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 367 (inferred from the name graph)
≈270,000 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Vietnam, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Locally spelled Yan in CN China.
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)
yen, the unit of Japanese currency (symbol: ¥) since 1871, divided into 100 sen
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested across 21 languages in the etymology graph.
How Yen is read(measured from records)
Yen is one spelling over 3 language communities, and the dictionaries record it differently in 2 of them. Each row is what a source recorded for that language, beside the share of this name’s records the language holds. No single row is the name’s meaning.
- Vietnamese50%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Yen in Vietnamese.
- English27%
The unit of Japanese currency (symbol: ¥) since 1871, divided into 100 sen.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- Malay7.7%
yen, the unit of Japanese currency (symbol: ¥) since 1871, divided into 100 sen
as a wordrecorded as Indonesiankaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
The share is ours — how much of this name’s records each language holds. The sense beside it is the source’s, quoted and credited, including where it names a gender. We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Yen 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| VN Vietnam | #43 | ≈270,000 est. | ≈1 in 367 | listed | Yen | 184 |
| CN China | — | ≈81,000 est. | ≈1 in 17K | — | Yan | 19 |
| BR Brazil | — | 62,323as Yan | 1 in 3.4K | 62K | — | — |
| MY Malaysia | #92 | ≈26,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.3K | — | Yen | 114 |
| ID Indonesia | — | ≈21,000 est. | ≈1 in 13K | — | Yen | 93 |
| HK Hong Kong | #666 | ≈1,500 est. | ≈1 in 4.8K | — | Yen | 14 |
| SG Singapore | #426 | ≈1,300 est. | ≈1 in 4.8K | — | Yen | 83 |
| NL Netherlands | — | 217 | 1 in 80K | 175 | Yen | 10 |
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: IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror); Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (all-time BRP bearer counts, 2018). 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)
Yen is also recorded in 4 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
Anhelada, deseada
as a name25,000 nombres de bebé. La mejor guía para escoger el nombre adecuado
In dag, ‘gonna’ : a form of the auxiliary verb ‘ye’
as a wordDagbani Dictionary CD
In cdo, A shelter, a breastwork for archers or spearmen ； Yen to oppose, to fend off. COLL., ugieng i oi lo examine marks left by a thief ； ngieng^ ^md (siong, to bold an inquest and find no wounds (on the corpse). o 1.
as a wordAn Alphabetic Dictionary of the Chinese Language in the Foochow Dialect
In cdo, overflowing, running out. VWtS^ A walled inclosnre, a Qyi- court -yard; a public es- tablishment ； an office, a monastery, a hospital ； a
as a wordAn Alphabetic Dictionary of the Chinese Language in the Foochow Dialect
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)
- Zhang Yanb. 150CNnot in their usual namelate 2nd century Chinese leader of the Heishan bandits
- Xiang Yanb. 300not in their usual nameXiang Yu's grandfather
- Liao Yanb. 1644not in their usual nameQing dynasty person CBDB = 91118
- Michelle Simab. 1963GBnot in their usual nameChinese actress from Hong Kong
- Low Yen Lingb. 1974SGMember of the Parliament of Singapore
- Yao Yanb. 1974CNnot in their usual nameChinese badminton player
- Athena Lee Yenb. 1981TWTaiwanese actress
- Tao Xinb. 1988CNnot in their usual nameChinese Go player
- Lan Yanb. 1990CNnot in their usual nameChinese actress, pop singer, and model
- Hoàng Yến Chibib. 1995VNVietnamese singer and actress (born 1995)
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 56 sources across 29 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| NL Netherlands | Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (all-time BRP bearer counts, 2018) | — | 175 | #3,934 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror) | 2022 | 57 | — |
| NL Netherlands | Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (live per-name BRP counts, 1790-2017) | — | 46 | #12,438 |
| NL Netherlands | Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (all-time BRP bearer counts, 2018) | — | 42 | #7,432 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 29 | #60,880 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 28 | #60,880 |
| NL Netherlands | Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (live per-name BRP counts, 1790-2017) | — | 13 | #24,870 |
Reference works 3
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
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
- Where does the name Yen come from?
- yen, the unit of Japanese currency (symbol: ¥) since 1871, divided into 100 sen Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- What does the name Yen mean?
- In English, The unit of Japanese currency (symbol: ¥) since 1871, divided into 100 sen.
- How do you pronounce Yen?
- A machine transcription gives /jɛŋ˧˧/ (IPA) for Vietnamese.
- Is Yen a male or female name?
- Yen is a male name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
- In which country does Yen have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 269 thousand people named Yen in Vietnam, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled yen.
- How common is the name Yen?
- In the Netherlands, the national register counted 217 people named Yen, about 1 in 80 thousand residents.
- How common is Yen compared with other names?
- In Vietnam, Yen is the 43rd most common given name of 73,918 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Yen?
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/yenThe 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, “Yen” — the 43rd most common given name in Vietnam. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.