Lucas
Masculine · “From Lucania”
Lucas is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 331,092 boys against 536 girls since 1880. See Lucas as a girl name
Lucas is the Latin form of the Greek Loukas, the name of the evangelist who wrote the third Gospel, and it has been written down continuously since the earliest Latin Bibles. It traveled into Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch and Scandinavian use with the spelling intact, which is why the German painter Lucas Cranach the Elder in the sixteenth century and footballers in Spain, France, Brazil and Australia today all share exactly the same six letters. In the mouth it is two clean syllables that land the same way in most European languages.
How old is the name Lucas?
Lucas first appears in US birth records in 1881 — 144 years ago. The typical Lucas alive today was born around 2011, making them about 14 years old. About 324,000 people named Lucas are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Lucas most popular?
Lucas peaked in 2018, reaching #8 nationally. Today it ranks #10, 2 places below that high. See the whole 2018 chart.
Lucas appears on these lists:
- Transatlantic hits: loved on both sides of the ocean
- America's top 100 names right now
- The top-10 club: every name that made it
- Generation Alpha names (born 2013 onward)
- Two-syllable names, the American default
- Five-letter names, the comfortable middle
- all guides
Works in British and French families too:
Where it comes from
From Lucanus to Lucas
The story of Lucas
The name begins as Greek Loukas, carried through the New Testament and the early church, then standardized in Latin as Lucas. Latin Christianity spread it across Europe, where each language kept its own shape: Luc in French, Luca in Italian, Łukasz in Polish, Lukas in German and the Nordic countries. English speakers used Luke as the everyday form for centuries while Lucas survived chiefly as a surname and as the formal, Latinate spelling. In the last few generations the Latin form came back into English-language use as a given name in its own right, and it now charts on both sides of the Atlantic — including Canada, France, England and Wales, and Scotland.
Meaning
From Lucania, a region of southern Italy
Loukas is understood as a short form of the Latin Lucanus, 'man from Lucania'. The popular link to Latin lux, 'light', belongs to a different name, Lucius; the two have been mixed up for centuries but are not the same word.
Cultural footprint
Lucas Cranach the Elder (b. 1472) — Renaissance master painter
Source: Wikidata — the one source on this page that is not an official agency.
How the name formed
- Lucanus
- Loukas
- Lucas
- Luke
Related forms: Lukas · Luke · Luca · Luc · Łukasz · Loukas
Pronouncing Lucas
LOO-kus
Stress on the first syllable in English. Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking families give the second syllable a fuller vowel, closer to LOO-kahs, and French speakers say it closer to lu-KA.
Nicknames for Lucas
High
What the data says
146 years of official birth records
The long climb, and where it stands now
The same years in position rather than babies
- First recorded
- 1881
- Most boys named
- 201713,032 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #8reached in 2018
- Change vs 2022
- −6.9%10,219 in 2025, from 10,973
Rank is a position, a count is a headcount, and they move independently — a name can hold its rank while the number of babies behind it falls. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration.
Lucas in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Lukas in German — spelling variant
- Luke in English — related form
- Luca in Italian — related form
- Luc in French — related form
- Łukasz in Polish — related form
- Loukas in Greek — transliteration
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, Florida. INSEE rounds every published count to the nearest five for statistical confidentiality; the ranks are calculated from the exact figures. International figures from Statistics Canada, INSEE, Office for National Statistics, National Records of Scotland. Sources
Lucass among us
people named Lucas are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 167 born in 2025 was named Lucas
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Lucas
- #10
- Lucas on the 2025 chart
- #10
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Lucas went to 10,219 boys in 2025, but Lukas is the same name said out loud. Together the 3 spellings went to 11,428, which makes it the 10th most-given boys’ name of the year.
- Lucas10,219
- Lukas1,161
and 1 rarer spelling.
About 1 boy in 149 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 167 for Lucas itself.
Spellings are grouped by a fixed rule that folds interchangeable English spellings of one sound (ck/k, ph/f, x/ks, a non-initial y for i) and keeps vowels apart, so Sean and Shawn stay separate names. It errs towards splitting: a family here is never larger than the truth. SSA national data, 2025. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Edward test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Lucas's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Edward climbed just as high around 1912, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Edward's path sketches the road Lucas is walking now.
Lucas is coming down from a big peak (#8 in 2018). This is the stretch of the cycle where a name starts to sound like the decade it ruled.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Where Lucas is headed
Lucas should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
High confidence — fitted on official counts through 2025.
A damped-trend projection of the official birth data — a sketch of momentum, not a promise. Every name's forecast, ranked.
Lucas beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Lucas in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Spelled the same way in Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch and the Nordic languages, and understood without explanation in most of Europe.
- Comes with a ready-made short form in Luke, which has been the English everyday version of this name for centuries.
- A continuous written record from Greek Loukas through Latin Lucas — no reconstruction or guesswork involved.
- Currently charting in Canada, France, England and Wales, and Scotland as well as the US, so it travels without becoming a foreign name.
- This is one of the most-used boys' names in the country right now. In a large school, sharing the name with another Lucas is a realistic possibility.
- People will reach for Luke, Luca and Lukas by reflex. Expect to correct the spelling on forms fairly often, even though the name itself is entirely familiar.
- Lucas is also a common English surname, so it is worth saying the full name aloud to check it doesn't sound like two last names.
- It is stepping back a little from its high point, which usually means the name reads as current rather than dated for a long while yet.
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Lucas
Masculine · #10 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Lucass are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 324,000 people named Lucas are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Lucas?
- Lucas is the most-used spelling in US records — 10,219 of the 11,428 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Lukas.
- How popular is the name Lucas in 2025?
- Lucas ranks #10 among US boy names in 2025, with 10,219 babies given the name.
- How common is the name Lucas?
- About 1 in every 167 US boys born in 2025 was named Lucas — 10,219 in all.
- Will my child share the name Lucas with classmates?
- Roughly 1 in 7 classrooms will have a child named Lucas.
Ranked beside Lucas
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Benjamin#11 · William#9 · Mateo#8 · Levi#12 · Elijah#7 · Elias#13 · James#6 · Luca#14
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Lucas? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Lucas and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration; international figures from national statistics agencies. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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