Tao
given name · Latin script
Meaning, in Chinese: Hanyu Pinyin reading of 萄
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Tao is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country.
- CNChina≈1 in 1.3K(inferred from the name graph)
- VNVietnam≈1 in 5.5K
- TWTaiwan≈1 in 11K
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 Tao 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.
- China (inferred from the name graph)
- 3 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 338 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 1.3K (inferred from the name graph)
≈1,100,000 people, est.
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
China, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Locally spelled Teh in MY Malaysia.
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)
Alternative letter-case form of Tao: the way of nature or way to live one's life.
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested across 12 languages in the etymology graph.
How Tao is read(measured from records)
Tao is one spelling over 4 language communities, and the dictionaries record it differently in 3 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.
- Chinese34%
Hanyu Pinyin reading of 萄
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- English25%
Alternative letter-case form of Tao: the way of nature or way to live one's life.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
a doctrine of Taoism
as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names
Chinese: long life.
as a nameBaby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…
- Vietnamese14%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Tao in Vietnamese.
- French6.6%
Origine vietnamienne, signifie « la création ».
as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
From Chinese Tao, 'way, path'
as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
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)
Tao 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CN China | — | ≈1,100,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.3K | — | Tao | 174 |
| VN Vietnam | #265 | ≈18,000 est. | ≈1 in 5.5K | listed | Tao | 101 |
| MY Malaysia | — | ≈17,000 est. | ≈1 in 2K | — | Teh | 123 |
| ID Indonesia | — | ≈16,000 est. | ≈1 in 17K | listed | Tao | 78 |
| US United States | — | 4,759 | 1 in 70K | 6K | Tao | 338 |
| TW Taiwan | — | ≈2,100 est. | ≈1 in 11K | — | Tao | 80 |
| HK Hong Kong | #425 | ≈930 est. | ≈1 in 7.8K | — | Tao | 59 |
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 — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020. 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)
- Li Daoyuanb. 401CNnot in their usual nameChinese geographer, writer, and politician during the Northern Wei dynasty
- Feng Daob. 882not in their usual nameChinese inventor, printer, and politician (882-954)
- Tao Hob. 1936CNHong Kong architect
- Zhao Taob. 1977CNChinese actress
- Yin Taob. 1979CNChinese actress
- Tao Okamotob. 1985JPJapanese actress, model (1985-)
- Tao Tsuchiyab. 1995JPJapanese actress and model
- Tao Geoghegan Hartb. 1995GBBritish road cyclist
- Keung Tob. 1999CNnot in their usual nameChinese singer and actor
- Jian Taob. 2001CNChinese association football player (born 2001)
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 78 sources across 37 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 6K | #5,574 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 4.3K | #7,747 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 3K | #10,031 |
Reference works 6
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikipedia surname 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
- Is Tao a male or female name?
- Tao is recorded for both men and women. We don't publish a percentage split: a record's gender belongs to the person and is attached to every given name on that record, so names in cultures where a name string also carries a parent's or spouse's given name pick up large cross-gender counts.
- Where does the name Tao come from?
- Alternative letter-case form of Tao: the way of nature or way to live one's life. Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- In which country does Tao have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 1.1 million people named Tao in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled tao.
- What does the name Tao mean?
- In Chinese, Hanyu Pinyin reading of 萄
- How common is the name Tao?
- In the United States, the national register counted 4,759 people named Tao in 2020, about 1 in 70 thousand residents.
- How common is Tao compared with other names?
- In Vietnam, Tao is the 265th most common given name of 73,918 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Tao?
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/taoThe 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, “Tao” — the 265th most common given name in Vietnam. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.