Yoko Ono (オノ・ヨーコ, Ono Yōko?, kanji: 小野洋子), (born February 18, 1933), is a Japanese-American artist and musician. She is known for her marriage to John Lennon and for her work as an avant-garde artist and musician.

Yoko Ono was born to mother Isoko Ono, the granddaughter of Zenjiro Yasuda of the Yasuda banking family, and to father Eisuke Ono, who worked for the Yokohama Specie Bank and was a descendant of an Emperor of Japan. Two weeks before she was born, her father was transferred to San Francisco. The rest of the family followed soon after. In 1937, her father was transferred back to Japan and Ono was enrolled at Tokyo's Gakushuin, one of the most exclusive schools in Japan, which, before World War II, was open only to the Japanese imperial family and aristocrats of the House of Peers.

In 1940, the family moved to New York City, where Ono's father was working. In 1941, her father was transferred to Hanoi and the family returned to Japan. Ono was then enrolled in an exclusive Christian primary school run by the Mitsui family. She remained in Tokyo through the great fire-bombing of March 9, 1945. During the fire-bombing, she was sheltered with other members of her family in a special bunker in the Azabu district of Tokyo, far from the heavy bombing. After the bombing, Ono went to the Karuizawa mountain resort with members of her family. The younger members of the imperial family were sent to the same resort area.