Luke

267,180 people in America carry this name — ranked #202 of 923.

Most Americans carrying it were born this century.

Say it LOOK

1 syllable · the capitals are the stressed part

Phonetic transcription

L UW1 K — ARPAbet, as published in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. The digit on a vowel marks its stress.

  • People counted 267,180 2020 Census
  • Rank #202 Common
  • As a surname 17,362 ranked #2,036 the other way round

Where Luke comes from and what it means

Latin in origin, reading literally as “light”.

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.

How often Luke has been given

287,010 babies were given this name since 1880. The busiest year was 2014, with 10,524 of them.

80 90 00 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 00 10s 20

Most people carrying it were born in the 2010s.

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.

What goes well after Luke

One syllable, so a longer middle name gives the whole a rhythm.

Better avoided

  • Luke Christopher — runs together
  • Luke Kevin — runs together
  • Luke Eric — 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.

On the way up

Luke is given more often now than it was a generation ago. Most names move the other way.

Is Luke a boy's or a girl's name?

99.9% men
388 women

As recorded on census returns, not as anyone thinks the name ought to be used.

The most common full names

The census counts first names and surnames separately and never together, so these are estimates: how often the two halves would meet if they paired at random. They do not — names cluster by community — so read them as an order of magnitude, not a headcount.

Who has this name today

  • White alone (non-Hispanic) — 82.9%
  • Black or African American alone (non-Hispanic) — 1.7%
  • Hispanic or Latino origin — 7.8%
  • Two or more races — 4.5%
  • Asian and Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone — 2.6%
  • American Indian and Alaska Native alone — 0.5%

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.

Where the name Luke is most common in the US

In Alaska the name is given 1.6 times as often as it is across the country.

  • Alaska ×1.6
  • Delaware ×1.5
  • Montana ×1.5
  • Utah ×1.5
  • North Dakota ×1.5

Measured against the state's own share of births since 1960, so a small state can lead a big one. Counted from Social Security card applications.

Same syllables and stress as Luke

Nothing else in the file ends on the same sound — a rare thing, and useful if you want a first name nobody will echo.

Same rhythm — 1 syllables, stress on the first

Matched on phonemes, not spelling, so the lists follow the ear rather than the page.

Try it Name Matcher

Enter a surname and hear which first names sit well with it.

The matcher is confident about clashes — rhymes, doubled sounds, colliding stresses — because those are facts about the phonemes. Ordering the names that pass is a set of rules, not a verdict on beauty.

Open Name Matcher on its own page

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 Latin origin