Thao
Feminine · “filial devotion”
Thao is given to both — 1,040 girls and 197 boys since 1880. See other names given to both
Thao is a Vietnamese name that most often carries one of the four cardinal virtues of the Confucian world: filial piety, the duty a child owes a parent. It is a larger thing to be named than it sounds in English, and the tradition behind it has a canon of examples, some of which are genuinely alarming.
How old is the name Thao?
Thao first appears in US birth records in 1975 — 50 years ago. The typical Thao alive today was born around 1990, making them about 35 years old. About 1,000 people named Thao are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Thao most popular?
Thao peaked in 1984, reaching #1837 nationally. See the whole 1984 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From a Chinese word for filial devotion borrowed into Vietnamese to Thao
The story of Thao
The classic text of filial piety is a collection of twenty-four stories, compiled in China in the fourteenth century and known throughout the Vietnamese and Korean worlds as well. Some of them are gentle: a boy lies on a frozen river to melt the ice with his body so his stepmother can have fish. Others are extreme to the point of horror — a man proposing to bury his own child so there is enough food for his mother, and being rewarded with buried gold for the thought. The collection was taught to children for six hundred years, and modern readers of every one of those cultures find at least half of it appalling, which has not stopped it being quoted.
Meaningscholars disagree
filial devotion, or a herb
Two different Chinese-derived words are written the same way in the Vietnamese alphabet, and they mean quite different things: one is the virtue of devotion to one's parents, the other is grass or a herb, and both are used in names. A mark that Vietnamese uses to separate them does not survive American paperwork. So the name in an American record may be a virtue or a plant, and only the family knows which.
How the name formed
- a Chinese word for filial devotion borrowed into Vietnamese
- a separate word for grass or herb written the same way
- the twenty-four stories teach the virtue for six centuries
- the distinguishing mark is lost in American records
- Thao appears in the record after 1975
Related forms: Thao · Xiao
Pronouncing Thao
TAO
One syllable, rhyming with cow, and the th is not an English th at all. English speakers regularly produce two syllables and a sound the name does not contain.
Nicknames for Thao
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
- 1975
- Most girls named
- 198458 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1837reached in 1984
- Change vs 2015
- 0.0%5 in 2017, 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.
Thao in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Thao in Vietnamese — same name
- Xiao in Chinese — related form
Thaos among us
people named Thao are estimated to be alive in the US today
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
Questions parents actually ask
Fashion outlook
Thao 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
- Four letters, one syllable, and impossible to shorten into anything unwanted.
- It carries a serious idea rather than a decorative one.
- It works for a son or a daughter, which Vietnamese naming allows.
- English speakers will attack the th and get the vowel wrong as well.
- The meaning cannot be printed with confidence, because the spelling does not preserve which word it is.
- The virtue it names is a demanding one to hang on a child.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
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Thao
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Thaos are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,000 people named Thao are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Thao in 2025?
- Thao is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Thao with classmates?
- Thao will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More T names
The most-given names starting with T, all years combined.
Teresa#908 · Theresa#1548 · Tiffany#878 · Tammy#3645 · Taylor#403 · Tina#2778 · Tracy#2153 · Thelma#4661
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Thao? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Thao and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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