Sayo (さよ)

Sources

Pronunciation guide

(Main) gender: Female
Pronunciation: sah-yo [sá.jò̞]

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Etymology and/or ways to write:
This name is derived from 小夜 (sayo) meaning “night.” Other kanji for this name can be seen in the table below:

sa (さ)	yo (よ)
紗 “gauze”	代/世 “generation”
沙/砂 “sand”	与 “gift, award”
佐 “help”	予 phonetic kanji*
彩/采 “colouring”	葉 “leaf”
早 “early”	誉 “honour”
瑳 “polish, shine”	容 “form, shape, figure”
裟 part of 袈裟 (kesa), robes of fully ordained Buddhist monks and nuns	陽 “day; sun”
	依 “reliance, dependence”
	詠 “recitation”
	蓉 part of 芙蓉 (fuyō) “Confederate rose”

* can refer to the formal/literary first-person personal pronoun

Popularity:
In use since at least the Muromachi period (1336-1573) when female names were mainly suffixed with 賣/女 (me), usage of Sayo grew in usage in the Edo period (1603-1868), by then mainly written phonetically. Regarding its usage in the latter portion, on average (based on Tsunoda and Collazo), it ranks within the top 30 with percentages mainly above 0.7%.
It would remain somewhat common into the first half of the Meiji period (1868-1912), though it would drop down in usage in the early 20th century and become rarely used by the 1950s. It wouldn’t rise again until the 1980s but this time around, it’s on a smaller scale. In 1990, it was given to just over 0.08% of girls, ranking below the top 200, dropping to over 0.04% by 2000 before rebounding a little bit in the 2010s up to now.

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