Masao

given name · Latin script

Meaning: ‘Correct man’

Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise

/mɑˈsɑˌoʊ/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated

Masao is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Japan than in any other country.

rarermore common
  • JPJapan≈1 in 2.5K(inferred from the name graph)
  • USUnited States1 in 796K
  • AOAngola≈1 in 43K

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.

Japan (inferred from the name graph)

≈51,000 people, est.

3 (measured from records)

recorded for this name

Sources
143 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

≈1 in 2.5K (inferred from the name graph)

Japan, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Spellings & scripts(measured from records)

MasaoLatin(measured from records)
МасаоCyrillic(measured from records)
마사오Hangul(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)

‘Correct man’.

Sources 1

  • A concise dictionary of first names

Attested across 3 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Masao 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 Masao is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
JP Japan#413≈51,000 est.≈1 in 2.5KlistedMasao128
CN China—≈4,100 est.≈1 in 342K—Masao11
AO Angola—≈750 est.≈1 in 43K—Masao1
US United States—4181 in 796K414Masao143
BR Brazil—1891 in 1.1M271—1
CA Canada—≈140 est.≈1 in 267K—Masao23
PY Paraguay—≈34 est.≈1 in 211K—Masao7
EE Estonia—≈5 est.≈1 in 235Klisted—3

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: the japanese-names-oneill-1972 register; Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror); Brasil.IO genero-nomes (IBGE Censo 2010 mirror, CC-BY-SA); the ee-siseministeerium-registry 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 names spelled this way(inferred from the name graph)

Masao is also recorded as 4 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • English given name5 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Australia, United Kingdom, Germany

    Languages: English, German

    Also written Masaō

  • Portuguese given name4 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Brazil, United States, Peru, Argentina

    Languages: Portuguese, Spanish

    Also written Masão

  • a separate name2 spellings in the group

    Also written Masaō

  • Thai given name8 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Thailand, United States, Laos

    Languages: Thai, Lao

    Also written มาซาโอะ, มาซาว, Masanao, มาซาโอ๊ะ, มาซาวี

44 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)

1900192019401960Masao Koga, b. 1904Masao Mishima, b. 1906Masao Shimizu, b. 1908Masao Takemoto, b. 1919Masao Kawai, b. 1924Masao Itō, b. 1928Masao Kunihiro, b. 1930Masao Maruyama, b. 1941Masao Komatsu, b. 1942Masao Yoshida, b. 1955

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)

Informalこんにちは、MasaoさんHi Masao, (English)

A formal English salutation is built on the surname, so it needs a full name — on its own, a first name only supports the informal form.

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 25 sources across 14 countries.

Official registers attesting Masao
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex2020414#23,426
BR BrazilBrasil.IO genero-nomes (IBGE Censo 2010 mirror, CC-BY-SA)—271#9,423
BR BrazilIBGE — Nomes (census name API)—225#23,605
BR BrazilIBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror)2022189—
BR BrazilIBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname)—187#26,468
BR BrazilIBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror)1950137—
US United StatesSSA — National Baby Names (1880–present)191881—
BR BrazilIBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror)194079—
US United StatesSSA — National Baby Names (1880–present)192268—
US United StatesSSA — National Baby Names (1880–present)191963—
US United StatesSSA — National Baby Names (1880–present)191761—
US United StatesSSA — National Baby Names (1880–present)192160—

Reference works 3

  • Dictionary of American Family Names
  • Wikipedia given-name tokens
  • 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 Masao mean, and where does it come from?
‘Correct man’. Recorded by A concise dictionary of first names.
How do you pronounce Masao?
A machine transcription gives /mɑˈsɑˌoʊ/ (IPA) for Japanese.
Is Masao a male or female name?
Masao 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 Masao have the most bearers?
Mondonomo estimates about 51 thousand people named Masao in Japan, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled masao.
How common is the name Masao?
In the United States, the national register counted 418 people named Masao in 2020, about 1 in 796 thousand residents.
How common is Masao compared with other names?
In Japan, Masao is the 413th most common given name of 366,905 given names recorded there.

What do you want to know about Masao?

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Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/masao

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, “Masao” — the 413th most common given name in Japan. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Masao parses inside a full name →