Louw
surname · English · Latin script
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Louw is a surname, most frequently recorded in South Africa. In Montserrat it is the 3rd most common surname. It appears chiefly in English and English (South Africa), written in the Latin script. Recorded meaning: synonym of zeelt (“tench (Tinca tinca)”).
- ZASouth Africa1 in 1.9K◐
- AUAustralia1 in 69K
- USUnited States1 in 1.1M
carrying the name, one hue, darker where it is more common. Hover a country for its figure.
- ≈804 ●
- Sources
- 114 ●
- 1 in 62K ◐
across 11 countries
20K records
Official registry-verified
Netherlands
Meaning & origin●
synonym of zeelt (“tench (Tinca tinca)”)
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Where in the world●
Sorted by bearers counted by national registers, records where none counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ZA South Africa | #122 | 15,910 | 16K rec. | — | — | Louw | 104 |
| AU Australia | — | 1,215 | 1.2K rec. | — | — | Louw | 71 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | 492 | 432 rec. | — | — | Louw | 70 |
| US United States | — | 297 | 1.7K rec. | 1 in 1.1M | 430 | Louw | 114 |
| NL Netherlands | — | 277 | 283 rec. | 1 in 62K | 329 | Louw | 55 |
| CA Canada | — | 98 | 89 rec. | — | — | Louw | 33 |
| DK Denmark | — | 80 | 0 rec. | 1 in 73K | 80 | — | 1 |
| NZ New Zealand | — | 70 | 60 rec. | — | — | Louw | 24 |
| BE Belgium | — | 48△ | 7 rec. | 1 in 244K | 48 | — | 7 |
| ES Spain | — | 33△ | 5 rec. | 1 in 1.5M | 33 | — | 6 |
| MY Malaysia | — | 23 | 13 rec. | — | — | Louw | 7 |
| CH Switzerland | — | 22△ | 3 rec. | 1 in 382K | 22 | — | 5 |
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table. How that works.
Languages●
- English20K53%
- English (South Africa)4.9K13%
- Swahili3.1K8%
- Dutch2.2K6%
- German1.1K3%
Show as table
| Name | Records | Note |
|---|---|---|
| English | 19,974 | 53% |
| English (South Africa) | 4,858 | 13% |
| Swahili | 3,132 | 8% |
| Dutch | 2,173 | 6% |
| German | 1,126 | 3% |
Language is read off each record's context, not declared by the bearer; a share is of all records for this spelling.
Other recorded senses●
Louw is also recorded in 2 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In German, Wohnstättenname zu Lau/Laue; univerbierte Form. 13 Belege; zeigt Laut- und Schreibvariation.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 3: Morphologie der Familiennamen
In Afrikaans, From German "Lowe", meaning "lion".
as a wordsanames.co.za — South African surnames
Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.
Notable people with this name●
- Japie Louwb. 1867ZASouth African rugby union footballer (1867-1936)
- Eric Louwb. 1890ZASouth African politician (1890-1968)
- Eli Louwb. 1927ZASouth African politician (1927-2016)
- Gene Louwb. 1931ZASouth African politician (1931-2015)
- Johannes P. Louwb. 1932ZASouth African translator and academic
- Rudi Louwb. 1985NANamibian footballer
- Gideon Louwb. 1987ZASouth Afrcian swimmer
- Tiaan Louwb. 1988NANamibian cricketer
- Kylie Ann Louwb. 1989ZASouth Africa footballer
- Anya Louwb. 2000AUAustralian cyclist
The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).
Evidence●
Attested in 26 sources across 14 countries.
Reference works 5
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Słownik nazwisk współcześnie w Polsce używanych (Tom II: C-D)
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-09-12 data build · 36 rows in the corpus for this spelling.
Frequently asked questions
- How common is the name Louw?
- We estimate roughly 804 people bear Louw (counting its spellings and scripts) across 11 countries in our records.
- In which country does Louw have the most bearers?
- Louw is most frequently recorded in South Africa, where it is most often spelled louw.
- How common is Louw compared with other names?
- In South Africa, Louw is the 122nd most common surname of 302,267 surnames recorded there.
- What does the name Louw mean?
- Recorded meaning: synonym of zeelt (“tench (Tinca tinca)”)
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/louwThe same payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. Rate-limited for casual use. Bulk access and licensing.
About this data
Data snapshot . Figures are rebuilt periodically and will change.
Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.
Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.
Cite this page Mondonomo, “Louw” — the 122nd most common surname in South Africa. Data snapshot 2026-09-12.