Ludwig

surname · English · Latin script

Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise

Ludwig is a surname, most frequently recorded in Argentina, where it is the 7th most common given name. It appears chiefly in English and German, written in the Latin script. Recorded meaning: from the Germanic given name Ludwig, from *hlud- 'fame' + *wīg- 'battle'.

rarermore common
  • GTGuatemala1 in 19◐
  • MOMacao1 in 22
  • ECEcuador1 in 31

carrying the name, one hue, darker where it is more common. Hover a country for its figure.

≈3.2M ●

across 9 countries

#21 ●

of 16M given names

8 ●

recorded for this name

Sources
564 ●

31M records

Official registry-verified

1 in 31 ◐

Ecuador

Spellings & scripts●

LuisLatin · Spanish●29M records
לואיסHebrew · Hebrew●17K records
ลอยThai · Thai●2.7K records
ᲚუისGeorgian · Georgian●28 records
ΛουηςGreek · Greek●12 records
L҉uisCyrillic · Spanish●2 records
루이스Hangul · Korean●1 records
ԼուիArmenian · Armenian●0 records

4 other spellings are counted as the same name:

Locally spelled Luis in BR Brazil, AR Argentina, MX Mexico and 12 more, Lewis in GB United Kingdom, AU Australia, CA Canada and 4 more, Louis in US United States, MO Macao and Ludovic in FR France, BE Belgium.

Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records; ○ marks a model's transliteration. Click a spelling to open its page.

Meaning & origin●

from the Germanic given name Ludwig, from *hlud- 'fame' + *wīg- 'battle'

Sources 1

  • Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung

Attested across 13 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world●

Sorted by bearers counted by national registers, records where none counts.

Where Ludwig is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
AR Argentina#76,590,1104.1M rec.—233KLuis200
MX Mexico#44,598,6833.6M rec.—16KLuis294
VE Venezuela#34,356,1981.5M rec.—698Luis172
PE Peru#33,795,7272.3M rec.—557KLuis173
GT Guatemala#41,854,379119K rec.—494KLuis146
BR Brazil#121,335,098700K rec.1 in 1591.3MLuis261
CL Chile#61,274,14892K rec.—457Luis191
CO Colombia#5751,049318K rec.—594Luis233
EC Ecuador#3539,474△20K rec.1 in 31539KLuis146
FR France#151539,110339K rec.1 in 126539KLudovic374
US United States#92488,50513M rec.1 in 681532KLouis564
GB United Kingdom#405427,572657K rec.—1.1KLewis286

Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table. How that works.

Languages●

  • English264K62%
  • German93K22%
  • Portuguese16K4%
  • French14K3%
  • Spanish8.8K2%
Show as table
Languages in which the name is recorded
NameRecordsNote
English263,92062%
German93,31722%
Portuguese15,7744%
French14,4703%
Spanish8,7942%

Language is read off each record's context, not declared by the bearer; a share is of all records for this spelling.

Other names spelled this way◐

Ludwig is also recorded as 2 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • Portuguese surname82K records spelled Ludwig8 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Brazil, France, United States, Argentina

    Languages: Portuguese, French, Spanish

    Also written Lüdwig, Ludwïg, Lûdwig

  • Croatian given name1.4K records spelled Ludwig17 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Croatia, United States, Sweden, Bulgaria

    Languages: Croatian, Slovenian, Bulgarian

    Also written Ludvig, Лудвиг, Lûdvig

74 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Other recorded senses●

Ludwig is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

  • In German, from Old High German hlūt 'famous' + wīg 'battle'; source of Louis/Lude

    as a nameDeutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung

  • In German, German surname from the personal name Ludwig; the plate shows e/o fugenvokal and many regional vowel spellings. Bearer counts not printed.

    as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 1: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen I, Vokalismus

  • In German, Linking-vowel variation in surnames from personal names Dietrich/Friedrich/Emrich/Ludwig/Mangold.

    as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 1: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen I, Vokalismus

  • from a Germanic personal name composed of the elements hlod ‘fame’ + wig ‘war’. This was the name of the founder of the Frankish dynasty, recorded in Latin chronicles as Chlodovechus (see Louis), and Ludovicus, which became German Ludwig. This became a hereditary name in the Wittelsbach family, the royal family of Bavaria.

    as a nameDictionary of American Family Names

  • Germanic: ‘fame warrior’; an ancient royal and imperial name, = French OLouis (see French supplement and main dictionary).

    as a nameA concise dictionary of first names

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.

Over time●

025507510019001950200088 · 1916

Show as table
Ludwig in SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present), United States, 1880–2025
Yearrecords
18809
18826
18836
18849
18858
188611
18875
18886
18897
189010
18917
189212
189315
18946
189515
189612
189716
18985
189910
190010
19015
190213
190313
19045
190515
19069
19076
190820
19099
191016
191123
191234
191349
191458
191575
191688
191778
191867
191967
192061
192154
192266
192353
192454
192539
192650
192760
192841
192946
193037
193149
193239
193344
193433
193537
193638
193738
193838
193928
194025
194119
194220
194318
194418
194520
194621
194727
194811
194919
195013
195117
195218
195324
195416
195519
195615
195721
195817
195915
19608
196115
196213
196323
196413
196517
196611
196710
196816
19698
19708
19717
197210
19749
19756
19769
19779
19789
19798
19806
19816
198211
198312
19847
19855
19866
19876
198815
19898
19906
199110
19929
19938
19949
19956
199611
19976
19987
19997
20009
20015
20027
20049
200510
20068
20077
20086
200910
20105
20119
201210
201312
20147
201513
20168
20176
201811
20208
202113
20229
20239
202410
202512

US SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) — 142 years between 1880–2025. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.

Notable people with this name●

1400160018002000William Louis, Count of Nassau-Dillenburg, b. 1560Carl Ludwig, b. 1816Emil Ludwig, b. 1881William Ludwig, b. 1912Christa Ludwig, b. 1928Bob Ludwig, b. 1944Olaf Ludwig, b. 1960Barbara Ludwig, b. 1962Laura Ludwig, b. 1986Alexander Ludwig, b. 1992

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 82 sources across 40 countries.

Official registers attesting Ludwig
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010201022K#1,600
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000200022K#1,485
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020202021K#1,649
SE SwedenSkatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population)—8.3K#454
SE SwedenSCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023)20205.3K—
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des prénoms (1900–2024)20233.3K#2,729
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex20201.6K#9,012
AT AustriaStatistik Austria — STATatlas Vornamen WFS (per-name time series 1984–2024)20241.1K#92
CH SwitzerlandBFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames)2024970#1,222
PL Polanddane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames)2026851—
PL Polanddane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names)—851#3,731
PL Polanddane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames)2026749—

Reference works 7

  • Dictionary of American Family Names
  • The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
  • Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
  • Wikipedia given-name tokens
  • Wikipedia surname tokens
  • Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
  • jeantosti.com — Dictionnaire des noms de famille de France et d'ailleurs (Jean Tosti)

These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.

Register rows as of the 2026-09-12 data build · 517 rows in the corpus for this spelling.

Frequently asked questions

How common is the name Ludwig?
We estimate roughly 3.2 million people bear Ludwig (counting its spellings and scripts) across 9 countries in our records.
In which country does Ludwig have the most bearers?
Ludwig is most frequently recorded in Argentina, where it is most often spelled luis.
How common is Ludwig compared with other names?
In Argentina, Ludwig is the 7th most common given name of 517,176 given names recorded there.
What does the name Ludwig mean?
Recorded meaning: from the Germanic given name Ludwig, from *hlud- 'fame' + *wīg- 'battle'
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/ludwig

The 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

● measured from records◐ inferred from the name graph○ machine-generated

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, “Ludwig” — the 7th most common given name in Argentina. Data snapshot 2026-09-12.

See how Ludwig parses inside a full name →