Yiu
Meaning
to shine, glow (耀)
The story
Yiu in this collection represents 耀, a character read in Cantonese and associated with shining, illuminating, and glory. The character is the evidence. The same Latin spelling can point to another Chinese character, while the same written character can appear under a different romanization elsewhere. Hong Kong names are normally written in characters and receive a romanized form for English-language settings. Yiu is a one-character given name, a compact pattern beside the more common two-character form. Its page's US curve stays near the floor and shows only a faint recent trace. That does not measure how familiar the name is in Hong Kong; it measures what American birth records can see. The honest story therefore begins with 耀, not with an English-looking syllable. In that documented form, Yiu carries a small, clear idea chosen to travel across scripts.
Popularity, 1890–2024
Shape drawn from US Social Security baby-name records. Yiu has stayed rare in US records the whole time: no peak decade to name.
The Yiu deep dive
Whether you’re naming a baby or exploring your own name’s history, this is a personal letter, not a list: where Yiu truly comes from, how it traveled, and what a century of records reveals. If you have grown a tree on nametree, it also considers how Yiu fits with your family’s names and surname.
Keep exploring
Does Yiu fit YOUR family?
nametree reads your family’s names and finds the ones that belong. Free, private, no ads.
Add Yiu to your family’s tree →