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Luke vs Lukus

American parents have registered 323,585 Lukes since 1880, against 980 Lukuses. Luke is still ahead, with 6,957 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Luke against Lukus, 1880 to 2025 0 3k 6k 9k 12k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Luke Lukus

Each line is every baby given the name that year, girls and boys added together — the only count that means the same thing for both names. A line breaks where the name fell below five babies in a year — the point at which the SSA stops publishing it — rather than being drawn through a figure nobody published. A single published year in a gap shows as a dot.

Who was ahead

Luke has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1880 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 1982, when Luke had 2,497 and Lukus had 25.

Side by side

  Luke Lukus
Total US births 323,585980
Most in one year 10,53648
Babies in 2025 6,95712
Estimated living today 310,000960
Median age today 1820
Peak year 20142007
Best rank 28th boys2,564th boys
Rank in 2025 33rd6,803rd
First recorded 18801976
Girls / boys 565 / 323,0200 / 980

A rank is a position within one sex’s list for one year, so the two rank rows are not subtracted from one another and the winning column is not marked on them. The living figure is a life-table estimate, not a count.

Which name is older

Half of the Lukuses alive today are over 20; half the Lukes are over 18. That is 2 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Both names abroad

Countries whose statistics office publishes both names, so the comparison can be made somewhere other than the United States.

Country Luke Lukus
England and Wales 72,62730

Every spelling a country files separately is added together, over whatever years that country publishes — which is not the same range in any two of them, so read the columns against each other and not the rows.

Compare something else

Related comparisons

Social Security Administration birth records, 1880–2025, public domain. Full histories: Luke and Lukus.