Sao
loc · Latin script
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
Sao is a name written in the Latin script, most frequently recorded in India. Recorded meaning: fat of swine or dog.
- INIndia
- BDBangladesh
- PKPakistan
Where the name is found, darker where our sources hold more of it. No national register counts its bearers anywhere we hold data, so the map carries no figures. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- India (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 101 (measured from records)
no count published
Highest-authority source
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Locally spelled São in BD Bangladesh.
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
fat of swine or dog
Sources 1
- Schuessler, ABC Etymological Dictionary of Old Chinese (2007)
Attested across 14 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Sao counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| IN India | — | 13K | Sao | 101 |
| BD Bangladesh | — | — | São | 2 |
| PK Pakistan | — | — | Sao | 7 |
| US United States | — | 1.6K | — | 60 |
| BR Brazil | — | 326 | — | — |
| ES Spain | — | 51 | — | 1 |
| FR France | — | 44 | — | 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: Instate — India surnames (clean spellings) from electoral rolls; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror); INE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal); INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000). 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)
Sao is also recorded in 6 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In Khmer, I n. lock. 2 . p. ignorant; possessing a weak intellect; useless, worthless cfiiinuc[mn poor. 3. 72. sister-in-law (older brother’s wife). key. EfiiinHCHifi to lock; to unlock, thick locksmith, cfdfincmn lock. tfiJIfn tfirifi
as a wordHeadley, Cambodian-English Dictionary, Volume II (ម-អ)
In cdo, Sincere, honest, guile- less ； to have real inten- tions, or purposes.
as a wordAn Alphabetic Dictionary of the Chinese Language in the Foochow Dialect
In Yoruba, a high-ranking warrior chief in several Yoruba towns. The Sàò is usually the highest ranking chief in the warrior class of a kingdom (in Akure, this class is known as Ùkómọ). Sàò is also a chief priest of the deity Ògún.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Filipino, mooring cable or chains; cable for mooring ships to the pier when at anchor
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In apb, the sago palm, Sagus sp., four kinds known, the leaves used for thatch
as a wordAustronesian Comparative Dictionary (ACD), CLDF v2.0
In ktk, spear ([Dempwolff (1905:207](Source#cldf:dempwolff1905))
as a wordAustronesian Comparative Dictionary (ACD), CLDF v2.0
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)
- Emperor Guangwu of Hanb. 5CNnot in their usual nameemperor and founder of the Eastern Han Dynasty (5 BC - AD 57) (r. AD 25 - AD 57)
- Zhang Xiub. 200CNnot in their usual nameChinese general and warlord (died 207)
- Zhu Xiub. 1884CNnot in their usual nameMa Qi secretary
- Wenxiub. 1909CNnot in their usual nameQing Dynasty imperial consort (1909–1953)
- Liu Xiunot in their usual nameMing dynasty person CBDB = 220854
- Feng Xiunot in their usual nameMing dynasty person CBDB = 304206
- Zha Xiunot in their usual nameMing dynasty person CBDB = 320174
- Zhu Xiunot in their usual nameMing dynasty person CBDB = 214264
- Zhang Xiunot in their usual nameMing dynasty person CBDB = 309701
- Cai Xiunot in their usual nameMing dynasty person CBDB = 320513
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)
Attested in 39 sources across 21 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 21K | #808 |
| IN India | Instate — India surnames (clean spellings) from electoral rolls | — | 13K | #851 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 1.6K | #17,285 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 1.5K | #18,529 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 1.2K | #21,113 |
| IN India | Instate — India surnames by state (real counts) from electoral rolls | — | 408 | #86 |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1981 | 59 | — |
| ES Spain | INE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal) | — | 51 | #44,128 |
| ES Spain | INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos) | — | 51 | #43,744 |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1991 | 44 | — |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 3
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Ethiopian name tokens (GitHub lehagere/ethiopian-names, 40/60 condominium list)
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 Sao mean, and where does it come from?
- fat of swine or dog Recorded by Schuessler, ABC Etymological Dictionary of Old Chinese (2007).
- In which country does Sao have the most bearers?
- Sao is most frequently recorded in India, where it is most often spelled sao.
What do you want to know about Sao?
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/saoThe 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, “Sao”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.