Yoshiko
A feminine Japanese name meaning "beautiful child" or "good child".
Name Census estimates that about 192 living Americans carry the first name Yoshiko. The name is used almost exclusively for girls. The average person named Yoshiko today is around 54 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Yoshiko births was 1921 (85 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Yoshiko. Below you will find a gender breakdown showing how the name splits between male and female registrations, a year-by-year popularity chart stretching back to 1880, decade-level totals, the top US states for this name, its meaning and etymology, and a set of frequently asked questions with data-backed answers.
People living today
192
~ 1 in 1,785,179 Americans
Peak year
1921
85 babies that year
Average age
54
years old
2007 SSA rank
#15,437
Tracked since 1906
Popularity
Yoshiko: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Yoshiko from the 1900s through to the 2000s, spanning 10 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1920s, with 624 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1920s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Yoshiko by decade
The table below breaks the full SSA timeline into ten-year windows. Each row shows how many male and female babies were given the name Yoshiko during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Yoshikos live
The SSA's state-level files cover 3 states and territories. Hawaii, California, Washington recorded the most babies named Yoshiko, while Washington, California, Hawaii recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 338 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Yoshiko
The name Yoshiko is a Japanese given name that originated in the late 19th century. It is a combination of the Japanese words "yo" meaning "good" or "positive" and "shiko" meaning "child" or "offspring".
The earliest recorded use of the name Yoshiko dates back to the Meiji period in Japan, which lasted from 1868 to 1912. During this time, Japan underwent a period of rapid modernization and westernization, and many new names were created or adapted from existing Japanese words.
One of the earliest known individuals with the name Yoshiko was Yoshiko Kawashima, a Japanese novelist and feminist activist who lived from 1907 to 1948. She was a prominent figure in the early 20th century Japanese women's movement and wrote several influential works on gender equality and women's rights.
Another notable Yoshiko in history was Yoshiko Uchida, an American writer and author of children's books who was born in 1921 and died in 1992. She was known for her depictions of the Japanese-American experience during World War II, including her famous book "Journey to Topaz".
In the field of music, Yoshiko Kawashima was a Japanese singer and actress who was active in the 1950s and 1960s. She was best known for her roles in several popular Japanese musicals and for her hit song "Ame no Waltz" (Rain Waltz).
Yoshiko Tanaka was a Japanese figure skater who competed in the 1960s and 1970s. She won numerous national and international competitions, including the Japanese Figure Skating Championships multiple times and a silver medal at the 1968 Winter Olympics in Grenoble, France.
Finally, Yoshiko Yamaguchi was a Japanese actress and singer who rose to fame in the 1940s and 1950s. She was known for her roles in several classic Japanese films, including "Rashomon" and "Ugetsu Monogatari", and was considered one of the most popular and influential actresses of her time in Japan.
People
Yoshiko + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Yoshiko as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with Y
Other first names starting with Y with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Yoshiko: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Yoshiko?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 192 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Yoshiko going back to 1880 and adjusting each cohort for expected survival using CDC actuarial life tables. The result is an age-weighted living-bearer count, not a raw birth total. That works out to about 1 in 1,785,179 US residents.
Is Yoshiko a common name?
We classify Yoshiko as "Very Rare". It ranks above 73.7% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 1,331 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Yoshiko most popular?
The single biggest year for Yoshiko was 1921, when 85 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Yoshiko is about 54 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
Is Yoshiko a female name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Yoshiko in the SSA data are female. You can see the full per-sex comparison in the gender distribution section above, which includes the latest year rank, birth count, and peak year for each sex.
Where does this data come from?
First-name figures come from the Social Security Administration's national baby name files, which cover every name on a birth certificate from 1880 to 2024. Living-bearer estimates layer in CDC actuarial life tables broken out by sex to account for mortality. The population baseline (342,754,338) is the Census Bureau's latest national estimate. You can read the full calculation on our methodology page.