Inouye
surname · Latin script
Meaning, in Japanese: alternate Romanized spelling of Inoue. The -ye spelling represents a pronunciation no longer used in modem Japanese
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/ˌɪˈnuˌeɪ/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Inouye is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Brazil than in any other country.
- USUnited States1 in 126K(measured from records)
- BRBrazil1 in 64Kas Inoue
- AOAngola≈1 in 31K
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 Inouye 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.
- Brazil (measured from records)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 260 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 31K (inferred from the name graph)
3,312 named Inoue
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Angola, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
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)
alternate Romanized spelling of Inoue. The -ye spelling represents a pronunciation no longer used in modem Japanese.
Sources 1
- Dictionary of American Family Names
Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.
How Inouye is read(measured from records)
Inouye is one spelling over 2 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.
- English76%
Daniel K., US politician
as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names
- Japanese5.7%
alternate Romanized spelling of Inoue. The -ye spelling represents a pronunciation no longer used in modem Japanese.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
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 We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.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)
Inouye 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BR Brazil | — | 3,312as Inoue | 1 in 64K | 3.3K | Inouye | 53 |
| US United States | — | 2,647 | 1 in 126K | 2.8K | Inouye | 260 |
| AO Angola | #969 | ≈1,000 est. | ≈1 in 31K | — | Inouye | 2 |
| JP Japan | — | ≈500 est. | ≈1 in 254K | listed | Inouye | 23 |
| CA Canada | — | ≈390 est. | ≈1 in 96K | — | Inouye | 44 |
| FI Finland | — | 58as Inoue | 1 in 96K | 58 | — | 1 |
3,312 people counted by IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname), counting the spelling inoue. 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 2000; IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname); DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup). 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).
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Tomo Inouyeb. 1870JPJapanese medical doctor
- Tatsuji Inouyeb. 1880JPJapanese ophthalmologist
- Daniel Inouyeb. 1924USUnited States Senator from Hawaii (1924–2012)
- Lorraine Inouyeb. 1940USAmerican politician
- Wayne Inouyeb. 1953Uzbekistani tennis player
- InoueJPnot in their usual nameJapanese mangaka
- Sharon K. InouyeUSAmerican geriatrician
- David W InouyeUSresearcher
- Yasushi Inouyeresearcher
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 8 sources across 3 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 2.8K | #10,672 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 2.6K | #11,821 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 2.5K | #11,782 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 205 | #36,074 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 2
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- 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
- What does the name Inouye mean, and where does it come from?
- alternate Romanized spelling of Inoue. The -ye spelling represents a pronunciation no longer used in modem Japanese. Recorded by Dictionary of American Family Names.
- How do you pronounce Inouye?
- A machine transcription gives /ˌɪˈnuˌeɪ/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does Inouye have the most bearers?
- In Brazil, the national register counted about 3.3 thousand people named Inoue, more than in any other country we hold.
- How common is the name Inouye?
- In the United States, the national register counted 2,647 people named Inouye in 2010, about 1 in 126 thousand residents.
- How common is Inouye compared with other names?
- In Angola, Inouye is the 969th most common surname of 23,432 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Inouye?
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/inouyeThe 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, “Inouye” — the 969th most common surname in Angola. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.