Luis
Masculine · “famous in battle”
Luis is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 292,959 boys against 1,541 girls since 1880. See Luis as a girl name
Louis the Ninth bought the Crown of Thorns from the bankrupt Latin emperor of Constantinople and built a chapel in Paris to hold it. The relic cost more than three times what the building did. The Sainte-Chapelle is still standing and is mostly glass.
How old is the name Luis?
Luis was already in use when US birth records began in 1880 — it is at least 145 years old. The typical Luis alive today was born around 1998, making them about 27 years old. About 271,000 people named Luis are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Luis most popular?
Luis peaked in 2000, reaching #49 nationally. Today it ranks #144, 95 places below that high. See the whole 2000 chart.
Luis appears on these lists:
- Short and sweet: names of four letters or fewer
- The steadiest names in America
- The sweet spot: familiar but not everywhere
- Y2K names: the class of the 2000s
- Spanish and Latin names with warmth
- Names ending in -s
- all guides
Works in Spanish & Latino families too:
Where it comes from
From Chlodovech to Luis
The story of Luis
The name went through eighteen French kings, and one of them was made a saint — Louis the Ninth, who led two crusades, died of dysentery outside Tunis on the second, and spent enormous sums on relics in between. That canonization is the reason the name is on so much of the American map. French traders named a settlement on the Mississippi after the patron saint of the reigning Louis, and it became St Louis; the whole territory west of the river was named Louisiana after Louis the Fourteenth; and San Luis appears repeatedly across the Spanish-settled southwest. Spanish took the name from French and made it two syllables, and it has been among the most given men's names in the Spanish-speaking world ever since.
Meaning
famous in battle
From Frankish Chlodovech: hlud, loud or famous, with wig, battle. Luis is the Spanish and Portuguese form, Louis the French, Ludwig the German, Luigi the Italian. All descend from the name of the first Christian king of the Franks.
Cultural footprint
Luis Fonsi (b. 1978) — "Despacito" singer
Luis Buñuel (b. 1900) — Pioneer of surrealist cinema
Source: Wikidata — the one source on this page that is not an official agency.
How the name formed
- Chlodovech
- Ludovicus
- Louis
- Luis
Related forms: Louis · Luigi · Ludwig · Luis · Lajos
Pronouncing Luis
loo-EES
Two syllables, stress on the second, in Spanish. English speakers often say LOO-is with the weight at the front, or LOO-ee following the French, which drops the s entirely.
Nicknames for Luis
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
- 1880
- Most boys named
- 20078,054 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #49reached in 2000
- Change vs 2022
- −16.2%2,475 in 2025, from 2,953
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.
Luis in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Louis in French — same name
- Luigi in Italian — same name
- Ludwig in German — same name
- Luis in Portuguese — same name
- Lajos in Hungarian — same name
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas, California, Florida.
Luiss among us
people named Luis are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 690 born in 2025 was named Luis
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Russell test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Luis's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Russell climbed just as high around 1904, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Russell's path sketches the road Luis is walking now.
Luis peaked long ago yet still holds steady — names that survive their own wave usually settle into quiet, durable classics.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Where Luis is headed
Luis 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.
Luis beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Luis in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- A settled Frankish meaning with both elements traceable, one of them into modern English.
- The same four letters in Spanish and Portuguese, and recognizable in six more languages.
- Four short forms, two of them genuinely Spanish rather than anglicized.
- Continuous documented use for fifteen hundred years.
- English speakers regularly move the stress to the front or drop the s.
- Louis and Luis are the same name and will be interchanged on paperwork.
- It is among the most given names in the Spanish-speaking world, so it carries no signal there.
- The very few girls given this spelling will be read as boys on every form.
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Luis
Masculine · #144 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Luiss are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 271,000 people named Luis are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Luis in 2025?
- Luis ranks #144 among US boy names in 2025, with 2,475 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Luis?
- About 1 in every 690 US boys born in 2025 was named Luis — 2,475 in all.
- Will my child share the name Luis with classmates?
- Luis will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Luis
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Dawson#143 · Charlie#145 · Zion#142 · Matteo#146 · Beckett#141 · Elian#147 · Nathaniel#140 · Arlo#148
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Luis? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Luis and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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