Legard
surname · Latin script
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Legard is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country. Recorded meaning: From the medieval female personal name Legard, from Germanic Liutgard ‘tribe enclosure’.
- USUnited States1 in 889K(measured from records)
- NONorway1 in 80K
- FRFrance≈1 in 407K
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)
- Sources
- 145 (measured from records)
- 1 in 80K (inferred from the name graph)
374 people, 2010
Highest-authority source
Norway
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
From the medieval female personal name Legard, from Germanic Liutgard ‘tribe enclosure’.
Sources 1
- Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Where in the world(measured from records)
Legard 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 | 374 | 1 in 889K | 405 | Legard | 145 |
| FR France | ≈170 est. | ≈1 in 407K | 22 | — | 2 |
| GB United Kingdom | ≈150 est. | ≈1 in 441K | listed | Legard | 54 |
| DE Germany | ≈83 est. | ≈1 in 963K | — | Legard | 9 |
| NO Norway | 68 | 1 in 80K | 68 | — | 3 |
| IE Ireland | ≈10 est. | ≈1 in 500K | — | Legard | 1 |
374 people counted by Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010, 2010. 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 — Surname Frequency 2010; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000; the hanks-dictionary-surnames-1988 register; SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population); INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000). 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)
Legard 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 English, from OFr Legard / OG Leudgard, Liudgard, 'people-protection'; first attested Godefridus filius Leggard 1204 P (Sx)
as a nameA Dictionary of English Surnames
from a Norman female personal name, Legard, derived from the Germanic name Liutgard (borne by Charlemagne’s wife), composed of the elements Hut ‘people’, ‘tribe’ + gard ‘enclosure’.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
metonymic occupational name for a gardener, or status name for someone who owned garden, from Old French gard ‘garden’ with the definite article le.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
In English, female personal name Liutgard (borne by Charlemagne’s wife), composed of the elements Hut people, tribe + gard enclosure, which was introduced into England in this form by the Normans. In some cases it may be a var. of Ledger 1, with an excrescent dental. See also Leggatt. Cogns.: Ger.: Lauckhardt, Luckard, Leukart; Leickard, Leikart, Leichart, Leikert, Leichert (Bavaria).
as a nameA dictionary of surnames
In English, male personal name Liutgard (borne by Charlemagne’s wife), composed of the elements Hut people, tribe + gard enclosure, which was introduced into England in this form by the Normans. In some cases it may be a var. of Ledger
as a nameThe Oxford Names Companion - The definitive guide to Surnames, First Names, and Place Names of the British Isles
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)
- Cecil Henry Legardb. 1843(1843-1918)
- Charles Legardb. 1846politician (1846-1901)
- James Digby Legardb. 1846British Army officer (1846-1935)
- Alfred Legardb. 1878GBEnglish county cricketer (1878-1939)
- Percy Legardb. 1906GBBritish Army officer and sportsman (1906–1980)
- Eddie Legardb. 1935GBEnglish cricketer (1935–2020)
- Marc Legardb. 1955FRFrench politician
- Jonathan Legardb. 1961GBBritish journalist
- James Anlaby LegardBritish Royal Navy officer, commander in 1838
- George LegardPeerage person ID=496669
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(measured from records)
Attested in 17 sources across 8 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 405 | #48,877 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 392 | #56,329 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 374 | #54,990 |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1961 | 38 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1951 | 25 | — |
| NO Norway | SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population) | — | 22 | #41,064 |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1991 | 22 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1981 | 22 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1921 | 22 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1971 | 17 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1941 | 15 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1901 | 14 | — |
Reference works 5
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- 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
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 Legard mean, and where does it come from?
- From the medieval female personal name Legard, from Germanic Liutgard ‘tribe enclosure’. Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
- In which country does Legard have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 374 people named Legard, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled legard.
- Where is Legard most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Legard is densest in Norway — about 1 in 80 thousand people — even though United States holds more of our records for it.
- How common is the name Legard?
- In the United States, the national register counted 374 people named Legard in 2010, about 1 in 889 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Legard?
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/legardThe same 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), and bulk access is licensed separately.
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, “Legard”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.