Zaw

given name · Latin script

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

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

Zaw is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Myanmar (Burma) than in any other country, where it is the 2nd most common given name. Recorded meaning: From Burmese ဇော် (jau).

rarermore common
  • MMMyanmar (Burma)≈1 in 182(inferred from the name graph)
  • SGSingapore≈1 in 5.9K
  • MYMalaysia≈1 in 12K

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.

Myanmar (Burma) (inferred from the name graph)

≈310,000 people, est.

Sources
164 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

≈1 in 182 (inferred from the name graph)

Myanmar (Burma), est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Meaning & origin(measured from records)

From Burmese ဇော် (jau).

Sources 1

Where in the world(measured from records)

Zaw 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 Zaw is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
MM Myanmar (Burma)#2≈310,000 est.≈1 in 1822.1MZaw113
ID Indonesia—≈6,100 est.≈1 in 44K—Zaw16
MY Malaysia#486≈2,700 est.≈1 in 12K—Zaw33
CN China—≈2,600 est.≈1 in 528K—Zaw11
TH Thailand—≈2,400 est.≈1 in 29K—Zaw95
SG Singapore#513≈1,100 est.≈1 in 5.9K—Zaw60
US United States—7111 in 468K866Zaw164

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: This page features the most common names in Myanmar, published on WorldNames.; 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).

Other names spelled this way(inferred from the name graph)

Zaw is also recorded as 6 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • English given name8 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Malaysia, Australia, Singapore

    Languages: English, German, Dutch

    Also written Zẵw, Záw, Zâw, Žåw, Žãw

  • Japanese given name2 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Japan, Malaysia

    Also written Żaw

  • Bangla given name2 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Malaysia, Bangladesh

    Also written Záw

  • Korean given name10 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Malaysia, South Korea, United States

    Also written Sau, 사우, Sauh, Xau, Saú

  • French given name2 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in France, United States, Singapore, Malaysia

    Also written Źāŵ

  • Swedish name6 spellings in the group

    Languages: Swedish, Danish

    Also written Žåŵ

35 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.

Other recorded senses(measured from records)

Zaw is also recorded in 3 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

  • In enm, alternative form of sowen (“to sow”)

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • ISO 639-3 language code for Mitla Zapotec.

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • In English, A surname from Burmese.

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

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)

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)

InformalHi Zaw,

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 23 sources across 12 countries.

Official registers attesting Zaw
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20202020866#29,143
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20102010459#46,404
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20002000161#103,193
US United Stateswru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.)———

Reference works 3

  • Dictionary of American Family Names
  • Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
  • 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 Zaw mean, and where does it come from?
From Burmese ဇော် (jau). Recorded by Wiktionary.
How do you pronounce Zaw?
A machine transcription gives /zɔ/ (IPA) for Burmese.
Is Zaw a male or female name?
Zaw 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 Zaw have the most bearers?
Mondonomo estimates about 310 thousand people named Zaw in Myanmar (Burma), more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled zaw.
How common is the name Zaw?
In the United States, the national register counted 711 people named Zaw in 2020, about 1 in 468 thousand residents.
How common is Zaw compared with other names?
In Myanmar (Burma), Zaw is the 2nd most common given name of 9,528 given names recorded there.

What do you want to know about Zaw?

Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.

Please leave out anyone's personal details (see Privacy).

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

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, “Zaw” — the 2nd most common given name in Myanmar (Burma). Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Zaw parses inside a full name →