Seto
surname · Latin script
Meaning: Rōmaji transcription of せと
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/ˈsɛtoʊ/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Seto is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country.
- CACanada≈1 in 26K(inferred from the name graph)
- USUnited States1 in 118K
- HKHong Kong≈1 in 7.4K
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- United States (measured from records)
- 3 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 290 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 7.4K (inferred from the name graph)
2,814 people, 2010
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Hong Kong, 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)
Rōmaji transcription of せと
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested across 7 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Seto 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | — | 2,814 | 1 in 118K | 2.8K | Seto | 290 |
| CA Canada | — | ≈1,400 est. | ≈1 in 26K | 1 | Seto | 145 |
| HK Hong Kong | #851 | ≈970 est. | ≈1 in 7.4K | — | Seto | 31 |
| ES Spain | — | 336 | 1 in 149K | 336 | Seto | 44 |
| BR Brazil | — | 294 | 1 in 720K | 294 | Seto | 45 |
| SG Singapore | — | ≈120 est. | ≈1 in 52K | — | Seto | 31 |
| NZ New Zealand | — | ≈50 est. | ≈1 in 99K | — | Seto | 19 |
| SM San Marino | — | ≈1 est. | ≈1 in 24K | — | Seto | 1 |
2,814 people counted by Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010, 2010. 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 — Surname Frequency 2010; Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender; IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname); INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos); INE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal). 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)
Seto is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In Spanish, fence
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In pi, genitive/dative singular masculine/neuter of sent, which is present active participle of seti (“to sleep”)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Czech, neuter singular passive participle of sít
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Javanese, nonstandard spelling of séta
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Norwegian Nynorsk, definite singular of sètu
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)
- Hiroyuki Setob. 1952JPJapanese writer and politician
- Takakazu Setob. 1965JPpolitician
- Szeto Man Chunb. 1975CNnot in their usual nameHong Kong footballer
- Catherine Setob. 1976JPactress
- Kōji Setob. 1980JPJapanese YouTuber, actor
- Koji Setob. 1988JPJapanese actor singer
- Saori Setob. 1989JPJapanese actress, model, and tarento
- Asami Setob. 1993JPJapanese voice actress and singer
- Daiya Setob. 1994JPJapanese swimmer
- Kanna Setob. 2004JPJapanese AV idol and gravure idol
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)
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 21 sources across 14 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 2.8K | #11,229 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 2.7K | #11,326 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 2.5K | #11,444 |
| ES Spain | INE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal) | — | 336 | #11,001 |
| ES Spain | INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos) | — | 336 | #10,996 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 294 | #26,872 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 2
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
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
- What does the name Seto mean, and where does it come from?
- Rōmaji transcription of せと Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- How do you pronounce Seto?
- A machine transcription gives /ˈsɛtoʊ/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does Seto have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 2.8 thousand people named Seto, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled seto.
- How common is the name Seto?
- In the United States, the national register counted 2,814 people named Seto in 2010, about 1 in 118 thousand residents.
- How common is Seto compared with other names?
- In Hong Kong, Seto is the 851st most common surname of 8,142 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Seto?
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/setoThe 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, “Seto” — the 851st most common surname in Hong Kong. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.