How popular is the baby name Taio in the United States right now? How popular was it historically? Use the popularity graph and data table below to find out! Plus, see all the blog posts that mention the name Taio.

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Popularity of the baby name Taio


Posts that mention the name Taio

Where did the baby name Taio come from in 2011?

Taio Cruz's album "Rokstarr" (2009)
Taio Cruz album

The vowely name Taio started popping up in the U.S. baby name data in the early 2010s:

  • 2013: 8 baby boys named Taio
  • 2012: 6 baby boys named Taio
  • 2011: 8 baby boys named Taio [debut]
  • 2010: unlisted
  • 2009: unlisted

Where did it come from?

British singer/songwriter Taio Cruz.

Taio’s full name is Jacob Taio Cruz, though that’s not his original name. His name at birth was Adetayo Ayowale Onile-Ere. (His father is Nigerian and his mother is Brazilian.)

His second album, Rokstarr (2009), was particularly successful in the U.S. The single “Break Your Heart” (feat. Ludacris) reached #1 on Billboard‘s Hot 100 chart in March of 2010, and the single “Dynamite” reached #2 the following August.

Rapper Ludacris name-checked Taio in his verse for “Break Your Heart,” which Taio appreciated:

Luda’s verse helped Cruz clarify just how to pronounce his first name correctly. “He put my name in there, which is great — so people know to pronounce it now properly, hopefully,” Taio (pronounced “Tie-O”) said.

Apparently that wasn’t enough, though, because Taio felt the need to call his third album TY.O (2011) — a phonetic rendering of “Taio.”

But even this didn’t solve the problem. Here’s what he said during an interview in Australia in 2012:

“Everyone gets my name wrong which is quite funny cause it’s really two syllables long, it’s quite short,” he laughed, before demonstrating some of the more creative interpretations of his name.

“I think it’s because there’s so many vowels in my name.”

Do you like the name Taio? If you were going to use it for your own child, how would you spell it?

Sources:

Pop culture baby name game results, 2011 (part 1)

In part 1 of the Pop culture baby name game, the aim was to predict which pop culture-inspired names would debut on the SSA’s 2011 “long list.”

We got a handful right:

  • Bieber – nope
  • Cersei – nope
  • Daenerys – nope
  • Eames – yes, 5 baby boys. (Thanks, Julie!)
  • Lannister – nope
  • Gaga – nope
  • Jimmer – yes, 9 baby boys. (Thanks, Grace!)
  • Katniss – nope (Surprisingly! Just wait for 2012…)
  • Kreayshawn – nope
  • Lohan – nope
  • Occupy – nope
  • Potter – nope
  • Skrillex – nope
  • Taio – yes, 8 baby boys.
  • Tebow – nope (Also surprised about this one.)

I had to bump many of the suggestions over to Pop Culture Baby Name Game #2, as they didn’t qualify for this game (i.e. they had debuted on the list pre-2011).

Pop culture baby name game, 2011 (part 1)

Britney Spears album

Today is Britney Spears’s birthday. (Happy 30th, B!) And you know what happens every year when Brit’s birthday rolls around: the Pop Culture Baby Name Game!

What’s the game all about? Well, we try to predict which pop culture-inspired baby names will appear on the SSA’s official baby name data for the very first time in 2011.

Think back to all the big pop culture events of 2011 (and late 2010). Sports, television, politics, technology, movies, music, books, video games, and so forth. What brand-new baby names do you think they inspired in 2011?

Here are some possibilities:

I’ll admit it, some of these are recycled from last year. :)

What names would you add to the list?

UPDATE, May 2012: Here are the results!