Kao is from the Hmong Kao — older sister, eldest daughter. A modern American baby name in the broader Hmong-Southeast Asian heritage aesthetic. Kao is one of the foundational Hmong feminine names — central to traditional Hmong Indigenous Hmong-Mien heritage spanning foundational China + Vietnam + Laos + Thailand + Hmong diaspora United States. Notable bearer: Kao Kalia Yang (born 1980) — foundational Hmong-American writer + foundational author of foundational The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir (2008 — foundational Hmong refugee Thailand-to-Minnesota memoir + foundational Minnesota Book Award + foundational chronicle of foundational Hmong post-Vietnam War refugee resettlement) + foundational The Song Poet (2016 — foundational Minnesota Book Award + memoir of Hmong father) + Somewhere in the Unknown World (2020) + foundational figure in foundational Hmong-American literary heritage + foundational pan-Indigenous Asian-American immigrant cultural representation.
Featured throughout Hmong heritage.
Kao reduces to five.