Meaning and background
The story behind Tokyo
Tokyo is the capital of Japan, and its Japanese characters 東京 mean “eastern capital”. The city was previously called Edo; the Tokyo Museum Collection records the official renaming in 1868. As a dog name it is a genuine place-name reference with an easily recognised sound, not a translation of a traditional Japanese given name.
- Origin
- Japanese place name 東京 (Tōkyō), meaning “eastern capital”; Edo was renamed Tokyo in 1868. Source
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About Tokyo
Recorded as a dog’s name
Tokyo appears in 21 dog licence records in the 2026 New York City dataset.
How to read this count
These records cover New York City and may count the same dog in more than one licence period. They are not a national popularity ranking.
Pronunciation and rhythm
/toʊkioʊ/
US English sound sequence, converted from the CMU dictionary. Stress marks are shown separately.
Stress on the first syllable in the recorded US readings.
View dictionary notation
/toʊkioʊ/ · primary stress on syllable 1T OW1 K IY0 OW2
These are US dictionary readings. Personal, regional and other language pronunciations may differ.
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Sources and research notes (2)
Gender association: NYC licence-period records. Any dog can use this name.
- New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene NYC Dog Licensing Dataset — extract_year 2026 — Dog licence periods, not unique dogs; NYC only. No owner-level fields retrieved.
- Carnegie Mellon University / CMU Sphinx maintainers CMU US English Pronouncing Dictionary — US English dictionary readings; not owner-specific or exhaustive multilingual pronunciation
References support the individual facts shown. A source link does not mean the entire profile has been verified.