Kanako
Kanako was last recorded in 2005, when 5 babies were given it; 51 Americans have been recorded with it between 1984 and 2005 (Social Security Administration, published May 2026).
Girls and boys together; gaps are years SSA did not record (fewer than 5 births).
Births of Kanako by year: SSA national baby-name file, 1880-2025, published May 8, 2026. SSA’s notes on the data.
What does Kanako mean?
Wiktionary, English section
Kanako is “a female given name from Japanese.”
Meaning: Wiktionary, English section, as of Sep 25, 2026 (CC BY‑SA 4.0).
How popular is Kanako?
Unranked in 2025
Its last girls’ rank on record is #17,787, in 2005; SSA lists a name only in years with 5 or more births.
10 babies in 1999, the peak
Kanako peaked in 1999, when 10 girls were given it, #9,122 among girls’ names. It was not recorded in 2025.
| Year | Births | Rank | Per million girls |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2005 | 5 | #17,787 | 2.7 |
| 2003 | 6 | #14,749 | 3.3 |
| 1999 | 10 | #9,122 | 5.6 |
| 1998 | 6 | #13,213 | 3.4 |
| 1997 | 5 | #14,842 | 2.9 |
| 1994 | 5 | #14,458 | 2.8 |
| 1993 | 9 | #9,082 | 5.0 |
| 1984 | 5 | #11,163 | 3.0 |
Ranks and shares: girls’ names in each year’s SSA file; share of all girls SSA recorded that year.
Is Kanako a boy’s or a girl’s name?
Kanako has been recorded only for girls: SSA lists no boys with the name in 8 years of records (it lists a name only in years with 5 or more babies of a sex).
Girls and boys named Kanako: the SSA national file counts each sex separately.
How many people are named Kanako, and how old are they?
An estimated 50 Americans named Kanako and born in the U.S. are alive in 2026, too few to state an age range. An estimate from SSA’s births and life tables, not a count.
The 2020 Census counted 656 people named Kanako (656 women and girls, 0 men and boys). SSA’s births carried forward to Census day, April 1, 2020, predict 50 born in the U.S. The Census count is 13.1 times that prediction. Possible reasons: the Census counts people born abroad, whom SSA’s files leave out, and it records the name people give, which SSA may have recorded under another spelling or as part of a compound name.
Living estimate: SSA births carried forward with the survival rates in SSA’s cohort life tables (2024 Trustees Report) for each birth year and sex. How the estimate is made. Count: Census Bureau, first names in the 2020 Census (released April 14, 2026; names reported 100 or more times, with the Bureau’s disclosure-avoidance adjustment).
Names spelled alike
Of these 3 names spelled alike, given to 1,359 babies since 1880, Kanako is the third most given (3.8% of them).
Spelled alike: names in the SSA national file with the same pattern of letters and sounds and at most two letters apart, and Wiktionary’s listed forms; births since 1880 and in 2025, and each name’s peak year, from the SSA national file, published May 8, 2026. Some are separate names, not spellings of one.
Names that rose and fell in the same decades as Kanako
Names whose births rose and fell across the same decades, measured on each decade’s share of births.
Similar histories: each decade’s share of births, from the SSA national file, 1880-2025, published May 8, 2026. SSA’s notes on the data.
More about Kanako and names like it
- Compare Kanako and KanikaBirths, ranks, peak and the living estimate side by side.
- The most given names of the 1990sKanako peaked in 1999.
- Japanese namesWiktionary’s origin for Kanako: every such name, by how often it is given.
- The top names of 1999The year the most babies were named Kanako.
- Names starting with KMost given first.