Yu

Where Yu comes from

Transliteration: * (Mandarin): From Wade–Giles romanization of Mandarin (for: ㄩˊ, ㄩˇ, ㄩˋ, ㄧㄡˊ) (余, 于, 由 (yóu), 魚 /鱼 (yú) / 鱼 (yú), 漁 /渔 (yú), 渔 (yú), 楀 (yǔ), 俞, 喻, 兪, 於 /于, 遇 (yù), 虞 (yú), 郁 (yù), 尉, 禹 (yǔ), 游 (yóu), 尤 (yóu), 庾 (yǔ), 娛 /娱, 娱, 茹) * (Korean): From Korean 유 (yu) or 류 (ryu) (柳, 劉, 兪, 庾) * (Japanese): From Japanese ゆう or ユウ (優, 夕, 友, 有, 勇, 祐, 裕, 雄, 悠, 由宇, 侑)
— Wiktionary's entry for Yu
  • Japanese
  • 1 syllable
  • Vowel-ended
Along the way
  1. 1969
    First appearance
    #4,404 among boys, 5 babies — the first year at least five got the name.
  2. 1986
    Peak, #3,268
    14 babies named Yu — more than any year before or since.
  3. 1987
    The fade
    The first year with half the peak's births — down to #6,089.
  4. 2025
    Mostly boys from here
    Until now more girls than boys got the name; from this year it's the other way round, and has stayed that way.
In the dictionary
  • Synonym of Yuu; A unisex given name from Japanese.
Namesakes

We look up famous namesakes for names that have made the top 1,000. Yu hasn't yet.

Sources: the origin note and dictionary entry are quoted from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0); the namesakes come from Wikidata (CC0); the milestones are worked out from the SSA record.