Lu
Lu reached its high-water mark in 1954 at number 442, and has been recorded 4,081 times in all. In 2025 it ranked 11,932nd. About 2,800 Lus are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 69.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Lu boys named Lu
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 4,081
- Estimated living today
- 2,800
- Median age today
- 69
- Peak year
- 1954
- Best rank
- 442nd
- Rank in 2025
- 11,932nd
- First recorded
- 1886
- Girls / boys
- 4,046 / 35
How old the living Lus are
born that year still alive today
Of the 4,081 babies given the name since 1886, about 2,800 are alive — 69 in every hundred. Roughly 90 of them are children and 2,100 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1956 and half after.
An estimate, not a count. SSA births aged forward through SSA cohort life tables, which know nothing about who left the country or arrived in it — so for a name that mostly came to America rather than being born in it, this is a floor rather than a figure. Where you fall among living Americans.
Where the name comes from
and similar names.
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Lus
- Haley Lu Richardson (born 1995)American actress
- Lü Bu (born 160)Chinese warlord and general
- Lü Meng (178–219)General serving under warlord Sun Quan
- Lu Xun (183–245)Eastern Wu general and politician
- Lu Chen (born 1976)Chinese figure skater
- Lu Su (172–217)Chinese politician, general and diplomat
- Lu Ji (261–303)Chinese writer, general and official
- Lu Andrade (born 1978)Brazilian singer and actress
People named Lu with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Lu is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Lu is most concentrated in Iowa (4.3×), Indiana (3.1×), Ohio (2.9×), Utah (2.5×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 1954
The most popular girls’ names the year Lu peaked:
Lu elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| France boys | Lu | 10 | 2,595th |
| France girls | Lu | 5 | 5,426th |
Counts come from each country's own records and are not comparable with the US figures above, which cover different years and a different definition of a recorded name. Where a country writes the name several ways, the spellings are added together and the most common is shown. A row marked name registrations is counting something else: Portugal ranks each of a child's two given names separately, so a girl registered Maria Leonor is in both the Maria row and the Leonor row, and that figure is not a number of children.
Lu among the living
How many people each country's register counts under the name, rather than how many were given it in any one year. Each register was read on one date, and they are not the same date.
| Country | Spelling | First forename | Any forename |
|---|---|---|---|
| Finland girls | Lu | 16 | 23 |
| Finland boys | Lu | — | 8 |
A count of people on a register – Finland on 4 August 2026 – and not of births, so it cannot be compared with the figures above. Names with very few bearers are withheld, and a dash in the first-forename column means the register would not say rather than that nobody goes by it.
Where Lu lives in Spain
Not a count of births but of people: 179 women called Lu were living in Spain on 1 January 2025, of every age, born in any year. Where they live is not spread evenly.
Women: the provinces where it is densest
| Province | Spelling | People | Per thousand | Place there |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Barcelona | Lu | 57 | 0.019 | 2,357 |
| Madrid | Lu | 53 | 0.014 | 2,833 |
| Valencia/València | Lu | 15 | 0.011 | 3,387 |
Listed in 3 of Spain's 52 provinces. In the other 49 it is either held by fewer than 5 people – the point below which the source withholds a name – or it fell past the 5,000 names the source will print for one province. Neither means nobody there is called it. The rate is the source's own, not a share worked out here.
Related names
Lu against another name
Two names on one chart, with the year one overtook the other.
Try it on yourself
Source: US Social Security Administration, national and state baby-name files, 1880–2025. Counts include only births registered with the SSA, and names with fewer than five births in a year are not published. The living estimate applies SSA cohort life tables to those births; it counts people born in the United States, so it misses anyone who arrived later and anyone who has left.