girls:
242 births since 1968
#5474 (4th percentile)
boys:
940 births since 1969
#3651 (20th percentile)
overall:
1.2k births since 1968
#6558 (15th percentile)
The name Neko is the #6,558 most popular name of all time in the U.S. on a gender-neutral basis, with a total of 1,182 recorded births since 1968. This represents the 15.2% percentile of name popularity (more popular than 15.2% of all names). For boys, it ranks #3,651 (20.3% percentile) for all time with 940 births since 1969. For girls, it ranks #5,474 (4.2% percentile) for all time with 242 births since 1968.
Neko first appeared in U.S. birth records in 1968 (1968 for girls and 1969 for boys). Birth data for Neko is available in 45 out of the 56 years between 1968 and 2023 (38 years for boys and 26 years for girls). The Social Security Administration only reports birth data for years in which the name was given to at least five children of the same gender.
The name Neko has been given predominantly to boys, with 79.5% of all recorded births being male. In 2023, 80.5% of babies named Neko were boys. Interestingly, until around 1981, the name was more popular for girls (89.8% girls from 1968 to 1980), but since then it has been more commonly used for boys (82.5% boys from 1981 to 2023).
For boys, Neko reached its peak popularity in 2021, achieving the 5.4% percentile (ranked #880) with 29 births per million. The name was most common in 2021, with 29 births per million (ranked 5.4% percentile). Since reaching a low point around 2019, the popularity of this name for boys has been increasing. Currently, Neko ranks #883 for boys (3.1% percentile) with 18 births per million, which is 61.4% of its peak share of births.
For girls, Neko reached its peak popularity in 2009, achieving the 1.5% percentile (ranked #945) with 9 births per million. The name was most common in 2009, with 9 births per million (ranked 1.5% percentile). Since reaching a high point in 2014, the popularity of this name for girls has been declining. Currently, Neko ranks #944 for girls (0.3% percentile) with 5 births per million, which is 48.8% of its peak share of births.
This chart shows the total number of births per million babies in each year for the name "Neko".
These names exclude other spelling variations of this name. View all variations of Neko.
These similar-looking names have spellings that are closest to the spelling of "Neko", in the sense that there are the fewest number of letter differences between the two spellings. These names exclude other spelling variations of this name. View all variations of Neko.
Our model has identified 2 different pronunciations for the name Neko. Click the play button under each pronunciation to hear it spoken aloud.
Our model is 64.1% confident that Neko is pronounced as NEH-koh, which has 2 syllables. The next most likely pronunciation is NEE-koh, at 35.9% confidence, with 2 syllables.
If none of the pronunciations above sound right to you, could you please check whether any of these related pronunciations should be applied to the name Neko? These are pronunciations that other similar names use, but which are not currently associated with Neko. If you think any of these are valid pronunciations for Neko, please vote using the thumbs up button.
Our confidence scores estimate the likelihood that a particular pronunciation is the most correct for a given name spelling. These scores are derived from pronunciation dictionaries, manual verification, your feedback, and a fine-tuned large language model trained to generate name pronunciations.
For any given spelling, confidence scores across all identified pronunciations sum to 100%. However, these scores don't account for the possibility of valid pronunciations that our model hasn't identified.
The raw pronunciations shown (like N EH1 K OW0) use the ARPAbet phoneme system, a standardized way to represent English speech sounds. Each symbol represents a distinct sound in American English. Visit the ARPAbet Wikipedia page to learn more about these phonetic symbols.
Pronunciation audio is generated by an open source text to speech model that has been customized to adhere to pronunciations provided in ARPAbet format, but sometimes pronunciations that differ subtly will sound identical, particularly if the only difference is the level of emphasis on a syllable or a single vowel sound.
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