(Main) gender: Generally unisex
Pronunciation: rah-kuu [ɾá.kɯ̟̀ᵝ]
Etymology and/or ways to write:
This name is mainly used as 楽/樂 meaning “comfort, ease.” It can also be written with two kanji, a ra kanji such as 頼 meaning “request, favour; trust” or 良 meaning “good,” combined with a ku kanji, like 久 meaning “long time,” 空 meaning “sky” or 玖, meaning “black jewel” but also refers to the number 9 in legal documents.
Popularity:
By the late Edo period (1603-1868), Raku was in moderate use as a feminine name (mainly written phonetically at the time) with average percentages at well over 0.2%. Like most female names of the period, it lost much of its popularity in the 20th century.
Regarding its popularity for Heisei (1989-2019) and current Reiwa (2019-) periods, it was, at first, very rarely used for both genders, though as time goes on, they start rising a bit more and by 2009, around 0.010% of boys and 0.006% of girls received this name. Since the 2010s, the gender gap for Raku widened a bit and is now used more for boys than girls. According to my preliminary 2014-8 names research, over 0.02% of boys and just under 0.01% of girls received this name.
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Beyond Sakura and Hiroshi 