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Boy · Frankish, through French
Louis
Say it: LOO-ee
Meaning
From Frankish Chlodowig: hlod 'fame' and wig 'battle'; the same name as Clovis and Ludwig.
Certainscholars agree on this meaning.
Borne by eighteen French kings and widely used in the English-speaking world since the 19th century.
Its wave through time
Fading since the 1880s
In the United States
- 402,022 babies given this name since 1880
- At its height in 1880, about 1 in 133 boys
- 1,329 babies in 2020
Through the ages
- The Early Middle Ages400 to 800
- The High and Late Middle Ages1100 to 1450
- The Renaissance1400 to 1600
- The Age of Revolutions1750 to 1837
- Victorian and Belle Époque1837 to 1914
- The Modern Age1880 to today
Used by
The family of the name
Other spellings: Lewis, Lou
| German | Ludwig |
|---|---|
| Italian | Luigi |
| Spanish | Luis |
| Portuguese | Luís |
| Dutch | Lodewijk |
| Polish | Ludwik |
| Latin | Ludovicus |
| English | Lewis |
Famous bearers
- Louis IX (Saint Louis), king of France
- Louis XIV, king of France
- Louis Armstrong, jazz musician
Names worth a look
Where this comes from
- Royal and noble genealogies
- Calendars of saints and name days
- United States Social Security birth records, 1880 to today source
- National birth statistics of European countries source
- United States Social Security birth records, 1880 to today source
Meanings and histories are compiled from the study of names and their languages and checked by a second review.
Meanings and histories are drawn from the study of names and their languages, each with a confidence rating; popularity figures come from official birth records. Name histories are a living field: if you know of a correction, we would be glad to hear it.