Minoru
Masculine · “to bear fruit”
Minoru is a Japanese men's name from the decades of heaviest Japanese immigration, and it is a verb rather than a noun: it means to bear fruit, said of a plant or of a life. Its most consequential American bearer designed two buildings whose demolitions are the most photographed in the country.
How old is the name Minoru?
Minoru first appears in US birth records in 1912 — 113 years ago. The typical Minoru alive today was born around 1922, making them about 103 years old. Fewer than a hundred people named Minoru are estimated to be alive in the US today — a true one-of-a-kind name.
When was the name Minoru most popular?
Minoru peaked in 1926, reaching #963 nationally. See the whole 1926 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
Origin, sound and short forms
The story of Minoru
Minoru Yamasaki was born in Seattle to immigrant parents, worked his way through architecture school gutting salmon in Alaskan canneries, and became one of the most prominent American architects of the nineteen-sixties. Two of his buildings are famous for being destroyed. The Pruitt-Igoe housing project in St Louis was dynamited in nineteen seventy-two after fifteen years of failure, and an architectural critic wrote that modern architecture died at that moment, which has been repeated ever since — usually without mentioning that Yamasaki had wanted low-rise buildings and was overruled on cost. The World Trade Center, which he designed with narrow windows because he was afraid of heights, came down in two thousand and one. He had died eighteen years earlier.
Meaning
to bear fruit; to come to fruition
The Japanese verb, used as a name in the way several Japanese men's names are — a single word that says what is hoped for rather than describing the child. The character used is most often the one meaning fruit or truth, and the romanised form does not show which.
Pronouncing Minoru
mee-NOH-roo
Three syllables, all short and even. Japanese does not stress syllables the way English does, so an English speaker will add one; putting it lightly on the second is closest.
Nicknames for Minoru
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 boys named
- 192150 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #963reached in 1926
- Change vs 1938
- +120.0%11 in 1939, from 5
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.
Minoru in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- 実 in Japanese — same name
Minorus among us
Fewer than a hundred people named Minoru are estimated to be alive in the US today — a true one-of-a-kind name.
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
Questions parents actually ask
Fashion outlook
Minoru sits outside the current charts, and that is its own kind of answer: naming cycles can only date the names they carried up. A name this rare has no decade stamped on it — it cannot go out of fashion, because it was never in.
Based on 146 years of naming cycles. How we read them
The trade-off
- Every syllable is open, so English speakers manage it on a first attempt.
- The meaning is a verb rather than a noun, which is unusual and rather good.
- The spelling is unambiguous and cannot realistically be misspelled.
- American speakers will add a stress the language does not have.
- The romanisation throws away the character, which is where the precision lives.
- It is strongly associated with one immigrant generation.
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Minoru
Masculine
Frequently asked
- How many Minorus are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. Fewer than a hundred people named Minoru are estimated to be alive in the US today — a true one-of-a-kind name.
- How popular is the name Minoru in 2025?
- Minoru is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 boy names.
- Will my child share the name Minoru with classmates?
- Minoru will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More M names
The most-given names starting with M, all years combined.
Michael#21 · Matthew#32 · Mark#244 · Mason#39 · Martin#335 · Marvin#699 · Melvin#958 · Marcus#258
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Minoru? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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