Yaw
given name · Latin script
Meaning: The rotation of an aircraft, ship, or missile about its vertical axis so as to cause the longitudinal axis of the aircraft, ship, or missile to deviate from the flight line or heading in its horizonta
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/jɔ/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Yaw is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Ghana than in any other country, where it is the 12th most common given name.
- GHGhana≈1 in 1.2K(inferred from the name graph)
- MYMalaysia≈1 in 11K
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 109K
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.
- Ghana (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 255 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 1.2K (inferred from the name graph)
≈24,000 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Ghana, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
The rotation of an aircraft, ship, or missile about its vertical axis so as to cause the longitudinal axis of the aircraft, ship, or missile to deviate from the flight line or heading in its horizontal plane.
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Yaw 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GH Ghana | #12 | ≈24,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.2K | 96K | Yaw | 107 |
| MY Malaysia | #686 | ≈3,000 est. | ≈1 in 11K | — | Yaw | 60 |
| EG Egypt | — | ≈1,700 est. | ≈1 in 63K | — | Yaw | 7 |
| US United States | — | 1,320 | 1 in 252K | 1.5K | Yaw | 255 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | ≈600 est. | ≈1 in 109K | 95 | Yaw | 126 |
| LY Libya | — | ≈320 est. | ≈1 in 22K | — | Yaw | 2 |
| SG Singapore | — | ≈130 est. | ≈1 in 46K | — | Yaw | 47 |
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: Heuristic parse of ghanacitizenship.com; Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral 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 recorded senses(measured from records)
Yaw is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In Akan, V. {red. yeyaw] Ak. ye, to abuse, chide, scold, upbraid, revile, insult, affront; pr. 409.442.3o32f. oyaw no, syn. 6h6ro no, obo no ahohora, gbono adapa, osopano &c
as a wordDictionary of the Asante and Fante Language called Tshi (Chwee, Twi)
In ine-pro, part./adv.: already
as a wordStarLing Tower of Babel etymological databases (Starostin et al.)
In srn, a male given name from Akan, feminine equivalent Yaba, given to a male born on a Thursday
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In pbv, market
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In woe, mouth
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)
- Yaw Osei Adutwumb. 1964GHGhanaian politician
- Yaw Prekob. 1974GHGhanian footballer
- Yaw Shin Leongb. 1976SGSingaporean businessman
- Yaw Antwib. 1985GHGhanaian footballer
- Yaw Frimpongb. 1986GHGhanaian footballer
- Yaw Ihle Amankwahb. 1988NOGhanaian-Norwegian footballer
- Emmanuel Donkorb. 1994GHnot in their usual namebadminton player
- Yaw Yeboahb. 1997GHGhanaian association football player
- Yaw Annorb. 1997GHGhanaian association football player
- Yaw Ackahb. 1999GHGhanian footballer
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)
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 42 sources across 24 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 1.5K | #18,405 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 1.5K | #18,766 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 1.3K | #18,892 |
| GB United Kingdom | Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register) | 2002 | 95 | #34,220 |
| 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
- 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
- How do you pronounce Yaw?
- A machine transcription gives /jɔ/ (IPA) for English.
- What does the name Yaw mean, and where does it come from?
- The rotation of an aircraft, ship, or missile about its vertical axis so as to cause the longitudinal axis of the aircraft, ship, or missile to deviate from the flight line or heading in its horizonta… Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- Is Yaw a male or female name?
- Yaw 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 Yaw have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 24 thousand people named Yaw in Ghana, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled yaw.
- How common is the name Yaw?
- In the United States, the national register counted 1,320 people named Yaw in 2020, about 1 in 252 thousand residents.
- How common is Yaw compared with other names?
- In Ghana, Yaw is the 12th most common given name of 14,081 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Yaw?
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/yawThe 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, “Yaw” — the 12th most common given name in Ghana. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.