Kaoru
Kaoru was last recorded in 1999, when 6 babies were given it; 251 Americans have been recorded with it between 1914 and 1999 (Social Security Administration, published May 2026).
Girls and boys together; gaps are years SSA did not record (fewer than 5 births).
Births of Kaoru by year: SSA national baby-name file, 1880-2025, published May 8, 2026. SSA’s notes on the data.
What does Kaoru mean?
Wiktionary, English section
Kaoru is “a unisex given name from Japanese.”
Borrowed from Japanese かおる (Kaoru).
Meaning: Wiktionary, English section, as of Sep 25, 2026 (CC BY‑SA 4.0).
How popular is Kaoru?
Unranked in 2025
Its last boys’ rank on record is #9,297, in 1999; SSA lists a name only in years with 5 or more births.
30 babies in 1921, the peak
Kaoru peaked in 1921, when 30 babies were given it (17 boys, #2,022 among boys’ names). It was not recorded in 2025.
Births by sex.
| Year | Girls | Girls’ rank | Boys | Boys’ rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1999 | under 5 | 6 | #9,297 | |
| 1994 | 6 | #12,529 | under 5 | |
| 1992 | 6 | #12,466 | under 5 | |
| 1982 | 5 | #11,254 | under 5 | |
| 1929 | under 5 | 6 | #3,758 | |
| 1928 | under 5 | 6 | #3,931 | |
| 1927 | 6 | #4,554 | 7 | #3,637 |
| 1926 | under 5 | 7 | #3,560 | |
| 1925 | 6 | #4,686 | 11 | #2,673 |
| 1924 | 8 | #3,835 | 12 | #2,555 |
Every recorded year (20)
| Year | Girls | Girls’ rank | Boys | Boys’ rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1923 | 7 | #4,170 | 10 | #2,854 |
| 1922 | 11 | #3,050 | 11 | #2,715 |
| 1921 | 13 | #2,707 | 17 | #2,022 |
| 1920 | 10 | #3,223 | 14 | #2,282 |
| 1919 | under 5 | 9 | #3,003 | |
| 1918 | under 5 | 11 | #2,624 | |
| 1917 | under 5 | 16 | #1,943 | |
| 1916 | under 5 | 10 | #2,641 | |
| 1915 | 5 | #4,604 | 10 | #2,540 |
| 1914 | under 5 | 5 | #3,512 |
Ranks: girls’ names and boys’ names ranked separately in each year’s SSA file; “under 5” is a year SSA did not list the name for that sex.
Is Kaoru a boy’s or a girl’s name?
Of the 251 Americans recorded as Kaoru, 33% are girls and 67% boys.
Years with fewer than 20 babies given the name are left blank.
Girls and boys named Kaoru: the SSA national file counts each sex separately.
How many people are named Kaoru, and how old are they?
An estimated 23 Americans named Kaoru 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 864 people named Kaoru (699 women and girls, 165 men and boys). SSA’s births carried forward to Census day, April 1, 2020, predict 30 born in the U.S. The Census count is 28.8 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).
Where are babies named Kaoru born?
| State | Since 1910 | Rank, boys | vs. national |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hawaii | 112 | not ranked | 111.3× |
| California | 35 | not ranked | 3.5× |
Where Kaoru is more common than its national share predicts
Relative to its national share, Kaoru is most over-represented in Hawaii: since 1914 it was given 111.3 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 Kaoru 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 5 names spelled alike, given to 12,256 babies since 1880, Kaoru is the second most given (2.0% of them). In 2025 none of their 1,653 babies recorded by SSA was a Kaoru (SSA lists a name only with 5 or more babies of one sex).
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.
More about Kaoru and names like it
- Compare Kaoru and KairoBirths, ranks, peak and the living estimate side by side.
- The most given names of the 1920sKaoru peaked in 1921.
- Hawaii’s most given namesThe state where SSA recorded the most babies named Kaoru since 1910.
- Japanese namesWiktionary’s origin for Kaoru: every such name, by how often it is given.
- The top names of 1921The year the most babies were named Kaoru.
- Names starting with KMost given first.