Mako
given name · Latin script
Meaning, in Japanese: Rōmaji transcription of まこ
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/meɪkoʊ/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Mako is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Japan than in any other country.
- JPJapan≈1 in 4K(inferred from the name graph)
- HKHong Kong≈1 in 95K
- KEKenya≈1 in 213K
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Where a country counts another spelling of the name rather than Mako itself, the figure is that spelling’s, and it is named. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- Japan (inferred from the name graph)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 99 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 4.0K (inferred from the name graph)
≈32,000 people, est.
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Japan, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
from a pet form of the ecclesiastical name Makar, from Greek Makarios ‘blessed’. It may also be from a pet form of the personal name Mdtyds, Magyar equivalent of Matthew.
Sources 1
- Dictionary of American Family Names
Attested across 2 languages in the etymology graph.
How Mako is read(measured from records)
Mako is one spelling over 3 language communities, and the dictionaries record it differently in 2 of them. Each row is what a source recorded for that language, beside the share of this name’s records the language holds. No single row is the name’s meaning.
- Japanese58%
Rōmaji transcription of まこ
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- English11%
Ellipsis of mako shark
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- Hindi7.2%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Mako in Hindi.
The share is ours — how much of this name’s records each language holds. The sense beside it is the source’s, quoted and credited, including where it names a gender. We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Mako counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.
Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| JP Japan | #815 | ≈32,000 est. | ≈1 in 4K | — | Mako | 91 |
| NG Nigeria | — | ≈540 est. | ≈1 in 393K | — | Mako | 5 |
| US United States | — | 524 | 1 in 635K | 636 | Mako | 99 |
| KE Kenya | — | ≈250 est. | ≈1 in 213K | 1 | — | 6 |
| BR Brazil | — | 187as Maco | 1 in 1.1M | 359 | — | — |
| GE Georgia | #724 | 168as მაკო | 1 in 24K | 168 | Mako | 29 |
| HK Hong Kong | — | ≈76 est. | ≈1 in 95K | — | Mako | 3 |
| CL Chile | — | ≈57 est. | ≈1 in 319K | 2 | — | — |
Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.
Registers cited: Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; Georgia PSDA/SDA civil-registry name statistics (per-token API); IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror); IBGE — Nomes (census name API); SRCEI — Nombres más comunes (guaguas, 1920–2021); Mzalendo Trust "Elections Watch" — 2022 gazetted election winners. Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).
Other recorded senses(measured from records)
Mako is also recorded in 4 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
from a pet form of the ecclesiastical name Makar, from Greek Makarios ‘blessed’. It may also be from a pet form of the personal name Mdtyds, Magyar equivalent of Matthew.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
In Finnish, synonym of maha (“belly, stomach”)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Māori, to be peeled
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In urj-fin-pro, stomach
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Taruishi Makob. 1952JPJapanese illustrator
- Mako Ishinob. 1961JPJapanese actress and singer
- Mako Hattorib. 1961JPJapanese presenter and tarento
- Mako Odab. 1983JPJapanese AV idol
- Mako Kataseb. 1983JPJapanese AV idol
- Mako Morinob. 1987JPJapanese seiyū
- Mako Kobatab. 1990JPJapanese volleyball player
- Mako Komurob. 1991JPJapanese princess; eldest child of Fumihito, Crown Prince of Japan, and Kiko, Crown Princess of Japan
- Mako Kojimab. 1997JPJapanese actress
- Mako KatagaiJPJapanese voice actress
The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).
How to address them(machine-generated)
A formal English salutation is built on the surname, so it needs a full name — on its own, a first name only supports the informal form.
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 43 sources across 25 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 313 | #19,928 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 211 | #19,928 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 40 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 6 | — |
| CL Chile | SRCEI — Nombres más comunes (guaguas, 1920–2021) | 2021 | 2 | — |
| CL Chile | SRCEI — Nombres más comunes (guaguas, 1920–2021) | 2021 | 1 | — |
Reference works 4
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Ethiopian name tokens (GitHub lehagere/ethiopian-names, 40/60 condominium list)
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- How do you pronounce Mako?
- A machine transcription gives /meɪkoʊ/ (IPA) for Japanese.
- What does the name Mako mean?
- In Japanese, Rōmaji transcription of まこ
- Where does the name Mako come from?
- from a pet form of the ecclesiastical name Makar, from Greek Makarios ‘blessed’. It may also be from a pet form of the personal name Mdtyds, Magyar equivalent of Matthew. Recorded by Dictionary of American Family Names.
- Is Mako a male or female name?
- Mako is recorded for both men and women. We don't publish a percentage split: a record's gender belongs to the person and is attached to every given name on that record, so names in cultures where a name string also carries a parent's or spouse's given name pick up large cross-gender counts.
- In which country does Mako have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 32 thousand people named Mako in Japan, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled mako.
- How common is the name Mako?
- In the United States, the national register counted 524 people named Mako in 2020, about 1 in 635 thousand residents.
- How common is Mako compared with other names?
- In Japan, Mako is the 815th most common given name of 366,905 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Mako?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/makoThe payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.
About this data
measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated
These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.
Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.
Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.
Cite this page Mondonomo, “Mako” — the 815th most common given name in Japan. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.