Laura
given name · Latin script
Meaning: Latin name meaning “laurel”; used sometimes in Ireland
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/lɔɹə/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Laura is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country. In Uruguay it is the 5th most common given name.
- COColombia≈1 in 174(inferred from the name graph)
- ESSpain1 in 193
- ITItaly≈1 in 210
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- United States (measured from records)
- #214 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 556 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 174 (inferred from the name graph)
679,856 people, 2020
of 15M given names
Highest-authority source
Colombia, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
Latin name meaning “laurel”; used sometimes in Ireland.
Sources 1
- Irish first names
Attested across 6 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Laura counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.
Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | #550 | 679,856 | 1 in 489 | 679K | Laura | 556 |
| BR Brazil | #119 | 484,191 | 1 in 437 | 484K | Laura | 228 |
| IT Italy | #35 | ≈300,000 est. | ≈1 in 210 | — | Laura | 253 |
| CO Colombia | #13 | ≈280,000 est. | ≈1 in 174 | — | Laura | 242 |
| ES Spain | #21 | 259,183 | 1 in 193 | 259K | Laura | 272 |
| FI Finland | — | 26,591 | 1 in 210 | 34K | — | 61 |
| UY Uruguay | #5 | ≈15,000 est. | ≈1 in 230 | — | Laura | 115 |
| LV Latvia | — | 9,485 | 1 in 198 | 9.5K | — | 45 |
679,856 people counted by Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex, 2020. Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.
Registers cited: Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos); IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror); DVV — Etunimitilasto (Finnish given names register); DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup); PMLP — Personu vārdi (given names in population register). Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).
Other recorded senses(measured from records)
Laura 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 Italian, either from the female personal name Laura or a topographic name from Latin laurea ‘laurel (bush or crown)’.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
Latin, ‘laurel’. Aname sometimes used in Ireland.
as a nameIrish first names
In Italian, of uncertain derivation; in some cases, possibly a habitational name from Laura in Badajoz province.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
From Latin; name of Petrarch’s beloved. See main dictionary. Masculine form: Lauro.
as a nameA concise dictionary of first names
In Italian, Nome di etimologia incerta; attestato anche al maschile per un santo martire in Illiria.
as a nameDizionario Dei Nomi e Cognomi Italiani
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(measured from records)
- Jane Addamsb. 1860USnot in their usual nameAmerican feminist social activist, reformer, social worker, sociologist, philosopher, and writer (1860–1935)
- Laura Ingalls Wilderb. 1867USAmerican children's writer, diarist, and journalist (1867-1957)
- Gloria Vanderbiltb. 1924USnot in their usual nameAmerican businesswoman, fashion designer, socialite and writer (1924-2019)
- Laura Antonellib. 1941ITItalian actress (1941-2015)
- Laura Bushb. 1946USFirst Lady of the United States from 2001 to 2009
- Laura Harringb. 1964MXMexican actress and Miss USA 1985
- Laura Dernb. 1967USAmerican actress and producer (born 1967)
- Winona Ryderb. 1971USnot in their usual nameAmerican actress
- Emily Bluntb. 1983GBnot in their usual nameBritish actress (born 1983)
- Amber Heardb. 1986USnot in their usual nameAmerican actress
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).
How to address them(machine-generated)
A formal English salutation is built on the surname, so it needs a full name — on its own, a first name only supports the informal form.
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 156 sources across 75 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 679K | #53 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror) | 2022 | 484K | — |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 482K | #46 |
| ES Spain | INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos) | — | 259K | #18 |
| ES Spain | INE — Nombres más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal) | — | 258K | #5 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Nomes (census name API) | — | 211K | #247 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | 2020 | 117K | — |
| FI Finland | DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup) | — | 34K | #50 |
| FI Finland | DVV — Etunimitilasto (Finnish given names register) | — | 27K | — |
| LV Latvia | PMLP — Personu vārdi (given names in population register) | — | 9.5K | — |
| LV Latvia | PMLP — Personvārdu meklētājs (per-name population-register lookup) | — | 9.5K | #38 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 596 | #53 |
Reference works 8
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- Lietuvių kalbos institutas — Lietuvių pavardžių žodynas (Lithuanian surname dictionary)
- Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Rymut, Słownik nazwisk współcześnie w Polsce używanych (10 vols, IJP PAN, Kraków 1992–1994) — every Polish surname in the PESEL register at the end of 1990, with bearer counts nationally and per voivodeship1990
- Cognomix.it (Nomix s.r.l.) — Italian surname origin dictionary
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- What does the name Laura mean, and where does it come from?
- Latin name meaning “laurel”; used sometimes in Ireland. Recorded by Irish first names.
- In which country does Laura have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 680 thousand people named Laura, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled laura.
- What are other forms of the name Laura?
- In the etymology graph, Lauren, Lorraine and Lorenzo are forms of the same name in other languages; Lori, Laurie and Laurita are recorded short or pet forms.
- How do you pronounce Laura?
- A machine transcription gives /lɔɹə/ (IPA) for English.
- Is Laura a male or female name?
- Laura is a female name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
- How common is the name Laura?
- In the United States, the national register counted 679,856 people named Laura in 2020, about 1 in 489 residents.
- How common is Laura compared with other names?
- In the United States, Laura is the 550th most common given name of 2,815,431 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Laura?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/lauraThe payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.
About this data
measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated
These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.
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, “Laura” — the 550th most common given name in United States. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.