Kiyoko
Feminine · “pure child”
Japanese names arrived in American records in numbers from the 1890s and then stopped. The Immigration Act of 1924 barred entry from Japan almost entirely, and the flow that had built Japanese-American communities on the west coast was closed for forty years. The names in the records track that exactly.
How old is the name Kiyoko?
Kiyoko first appears in US birth records in 1912 — 113 years ago. The typical Kiyoko alive today was born around 1924, making them about 101 years old. About 200 people named Kiyoko are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Kiyoko most popular?
Kiyoko peaked in 1921, reaching #969 nationally. Today it ranks #11932, 10,963 places below that high. See the whole 1921 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
Origin, sound and short forms
The story of Kiyoko
The American history of this name is a demographic history. Japanese immigration to Hawaii and the mainland began in earnest in the 1880s and 1890s, was restricted by a diplomatic agreement in 1907, and was ended by the 1924 act, which set quotas designed to exclude Asian immigration altogether. The communities that existed carried on naming children in Japanese, and then in 1942 those on the west coast were removed to camps. The names did not disappear from the records, but their pattern is not a fashion — it is the shape of a policy. The ko ending, meaning child, was near-universal for Japanese girls at the time and has since almost vanished in Japan itself.
Meaningscholars disagree
pure child
Most often written with characters meaning pure or clear plus the character for child. Japanese names are written rather than spoken into meaning, so another Kiyoko may carry entirely different characters. The kiyo element is the one behind Kiyomizu-dera, the pure-water temple in Kyoto.
Pronouncing Kiyoko
kee-YOH-koh
Three syllables, said flat and even in Japanese rather than with English stress. Americans usually place the weight on the second. Every vowel is short and pure; none of them is reduced.
Nicknames for Kiyoko
Moderate
What the data says
146 years of official birth records
The long climb, and where it stands now
The same years in position rather than babies
- First recorded
- 1912
- Most girls named
- 192158 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #969reached in 1921
- Change vs 2024
- −30.0%7 in 2025, from 10
Rank is a position, a count is a headcount, and they move independently — a name can hold its rank while the number of babies behind it falls. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration.
Kiyoko in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Kiyoko in Japanese — transliteration
Kiyokos among us
people named Kiyoko are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 229,610 born in 2025 was named Kiyoko
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Augustina test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Kiyoko's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Augustina climbed just as high around 1903, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Augustina's path sketches the road Kiyoko is walking now.
Kiyoko sits in the calm middle of the cycle — neither chasing a wave nor sliding off one. Middle-of-the-cycle names age slowly and predictably.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Kiyoko beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Kiyoko in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- A real and once entirely ordinary Japanese name rather than an approximation.
- Three open syllables with pure vowels, which makes it easy in Spanish and Italian too.
- Kiyo works as a short form and is a name in its own right.
- In Japan the ko ending now reads as belonging to an older generation.
- The meaning depends on characters that an American record cannot hold.
- Very few people carry it here now and almost all of them are old.
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What they receive
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Kiyoko
Feminine · #11932 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Kiyokos are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 200 people named Kiyoko are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Kiyoko in 2025?
- Kiyoko ranks #11932 among US girl names in 2025, with 7 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Kiyoko?
- About 1 in every 229,610 US girls born in 2025 was named Kiyoko — 7 in all.
- Will my child share the name Kiyoko with classmates?
- Kiyoko will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Kiyoko
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Vina#11932 · Retta#11932 · Missouri#11932 · Iola#11932 · Eddie#11932 · Thomas#11932 · Louetta#11932 · Elvina#11932
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Kiyoko? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Kiyoko and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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