Kanoa
Kanoa was given to 23 boys in 2025, #4,468 among boys’ names; 878 Americans have been recorded with it since 1971 (Social Security Administration, published May 2026).
Girls and boys together; gaps are years SSA did not record (fewer than 5 births).
Births of Kanoa by year: SSA national baby-name file, 1880-2025, published May 8, 2026. SSA’s notes on the data.
What does Kanoa mean?
Wiktionary, Hawaiian section
Kanoa is “a male or (sometimes) female given name from Hawaiian” Its etymology gives the senses “the” (ka) and “commoner; freed of taboo” (noa).
ka (“the”) + noa (“commoner; freed of taboo”).
/kaˈno.a/
Meaning: Wiktionary, Hawaiian section, as of Sep 25, 2026 (CC BY‑SA 4.0).
How popular is Kanoa?
#4,468 among boys’ names, 2025
Kanoa rose from #4,804 in 2015 to #4,468 in 2025 among boys’ names; its share of boys born rose from 10.4 to 13.5 per million.
47 babies in 2010, the peak
Kanoa peaked in 2010, when 47 boys were given it, #2,606 among boys’ names. The 23 births of 2025 are 49% of that peak.
Births by sex.
| Year | Births | Rank | Per million boys |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 23 | #4,468 | 13.5 |
| 2024 | 26 | #4,139 | 15.1 |
| 2023 | 43 | #2,920 | 25.1 |
| 2022 | 22 | #4,622 | 12.6 |
| 2021 | 32 | #3,539 | 18.3 |
| 2020 | 19 | #4,940 | 11.0 |
| 2019 | 23 | #4,407 | 12.8 |
| 2018 | 22 | #4,536 | 12.1 |
| 2017 | 28 | #3,838 | 15.1 |
| 2016 | 30 | #3,644 | 15.8 |
Every recorded year (41)
| Year | Births | Rank | Per million boys |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 20 | #4,804 | 10.4 |
| 2014 | 29 | #3,656 | 15.1 |
| 2013 | 25 | #4,011 | 13.2 |
| 2012 | 31 | #3,485 | 16.3 |
| 2011 | 45 | #2,685 | 23.7 |
| 2010 | 47 | #2,606 | 24.5 |
| 2009 | 33 | #3,369 | 16.6 |
| 2008 | 39 | #3,038 | 19.1 |
| 2007 | 42 | #2,843 | 20.2 |
| 2006 | 19 | #4,774 | 9.2 |
| 2005 | 33 | #3,123 | 16.5 |
| 2004 | 23 | #3,939 | 11.6 |
| 2003 | 28 | #3,320 | 14.2 |
| 2002 | 19 | #4,252 | 9.8 |
| 2001 | 11 | #6,231 | 5.7 |
| 2000 | 21 | #3,847 | 10.7 |
| 1999 | 17 | #4,235 | 8.9 |
| 1998 | 16 | #4,297 | 8.4 |
| 1997 | 17 | #3,962 | 9.0 |
| 1996 | 8 | #6,807 | 4.2 |
| 1995 | 10 | #5,703 | 5.3 |
| 1993 | 7 | #7,204 | 3.6 |
| 1991 | 7 | #6,901 | 3.5 |
| 1990 | 5 | #8,797 | 2.4 |
| 1989 | 5 | #8,555 | 2.5 |
| 1988 | 6 | #6,841 | 3.1 |
| 1982 | 8 | #4,809 | 4.4 |
| 1981 | 7 | #5,207 | 3.9 |
| 1978 | 8 | #4,357 | 4.9 |
| 1974 | 6 | #4,938 | 3.8 |
| 1971 | 7 | #4,167 | 4.0 |
Ranks and shares: boys’ names in each year’s SSA file; share of all boys SSA recorded that year.
Is Kanoa a boy’s or a girl’s name?
Of the 878 Americans recorded as Kanoa, 1% are girls and 99% boys. In 2025 it went to 23 boys; SSA lists no girls with it that year (fewer than 5, or none).
Years with fewer than 20 babies given the name are left blank.
Girls and boys named Kanoa: the SSA national file counts each sex separately.
How many people are named Kanoa, and how old are they?
An estimated 864 Americans named Kanoa and born in the U.S. are alive in 2026 (98% of everyone recorded); the median is 16 years old and half are between 8 and 22. An estimate from SSA’s births and life tables, not a count.
The 2020 Census counted 710 people named Kanoa (48 women and girls, 662 men and boys). SSA’s births carried forward to Census day, April 1, 2020, predict 697 born in the U.S. The Census count is 2% above that prediction.
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).
Where are babies named Kanoa born?
| State | Births 2025 | Rank, boys | vs. national |
|---|---|---|---|
| California | 7 | #2,098 | 1.7× |
Where Kanoa is more common than its national share predicts
Relative to its national share, Kanoa is most over-represented in Hawaii: since 1971 it was given 81.6 times as often there as its national share each year would predict.
States: SSA state file, 1910-2025, published May 8, 2026; births count girls and boys together, and the rank is among boys’ names in the state in 2025. The file leaves out any state and year with fewer than 5 babies of the name, so small states are undercounted; each ratio compares the state’s births of Kanoa with the births its national share predicts year by year, for states with at least 100 births of the name.
Names spelled alike
Of these 8 names spelled alike, given to 26,432 babies since 1880, Kanoa is the fifth most given (3.3% of them). In 2025 it was given to 23 of their 918 babies (2.5%), again the fifth most given.
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 Kanoa
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 Kanoa and names like it
- Compare Kanoa and KaneBirths, ranks, peak and the living estimate side by side.
- The most given names of the 2010sKanoa peaked in 2010.
- Hawaii’s most given namesThe state where SSA recorded the most babies named Kanoa since 1910.
- Hawaiian namesWiktionary’s origin for Kanoa: every such name, by how often it is given.
- The top names of 2010The year the most babies were named Kanoa.
- The names of Generation ZMost people named Kanoa alive today were born 1997-2012.
- Names starting with KMost given first.