Luis
489,968 people in America carry this name — ranked #91 of 923.
A name with a settled sense and a settled sound.
Say it loo EES
2 syllables · the capitals are the stressed part
Phonetic transcription
L UW0 IY1 S — ARPAbet, as published in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. The digit on a vowel marks its stress.
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People counted 489,968 2020 Census
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Rank #91 Common
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As a surname 9,382 ranked #3,685 the other way round
Where Luis comes from and what it means
Teutonic in origin, reading literally as “famous war”.
Origins are a matter of scholarly argument rather than record, and a name can be traced more than one way. We state one reading and say where it came from.
Luis name popularity by year
280,632 babies were given this name since 1880. The busiest year was 2007, with 8,065 of them.
Most people carrying it were born in the 2000s. It has been given less often of late.
Counted from Social Security card applications, so it covers births registered in the United States and leaves out names given to fewer than five babies in a year.
Middle names for Luis
Two syllables sit with almost anything — the join matters more than the length.
Better avoided
- Luis Steven — runs together
- Luis Stephen — runs together
- Luis Scott — runs together
Chosen by sound from the pronouncing dictionary, then ordered by how often the name is given. None of it is a rule — the ear decides.
Is Luis a boy's or a girl's name?
As recorded on census returns, not as anyone thinks the name ought to be used.
This name in other languages
- Lova Swedish
- Lood Dutch
- Loïz Breton
- Loïs Brit
- Luiza Portuguese
- Luise German
- Luisa Span.|Port
- Luigi Italian
- Louis French
- Looys French
- Lodve Norwegian
- Lewis English
- Lajos Hungarian
- Aloys Prov
Forms of one name traced to the same root. Spellings are as the glossary printed them, so some look older than the versions in use today.
Names with the same rhythm as Luis
Ends on the same sound
- Jose 1,211,106
- Michelle 757,098
- Kathleen 547,321
- Nicole 544,076
- Christine 482,596
- Diane 422,752
- Miguel 296,001
- Marie 264,225
- Manuel 240,816
- Michele 199,114
Matched on phonemes, not spelling, so the lists follow the ear rather than the page.
Who carries it today
- White alone (non-Hispanic) — 2.6%
- Hispanic or Latino origin — 96.2%
- Asian and Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone — 0.6%
Categories are how people answered the census — a fact about the bearers, not a property of the name. Conclusions are ours, not the Census Bureau’s.
How to spell Luis
Luis is how 94% of them spell it — 522,430 people answer to the sound.
- Luis 94%
- Luisa 6.2%
Each spelling is its own census entry — the counts never overlap, so the shares are of the group, not of the country.
Names about as common
The nearest entries above and below by number of people.
Try it How Rare Is It?
Where this name sits between household and almost unheard of.
Where this page gets its numbers
- Counts, ranks and shares: U.S. Census Bureau, 2020 Census tabulations of first and last names occurring 100 or more times. Percentages, bands and groupings are our own arithmetic — the conclusions are ours, not the Bureau’s.
- Pronunciation, syllables and rhyme groups: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, Carnegie Mellon University. The plain-English respelling is ours.
- Origins and the forms a name takes in other languages: Charlotte Yonge, History of Christian Names, 1884 — a public-domain work. Scholarship has moved on since, so read it as one reading of a name, not the last word.
Below a hundred people we publish no figure at all — the same threshold the Census Bureau applies to us. What each source covers
Other names of Teutonic origin