Lis
given name · Latin script
Meaning: Slavic 'fox'; also related forms from LEUTE
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/lis/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Lis is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Brazil than in any other country.
- PYParaguay≈1 in 8.3K(inferred from the name graph)
- BRBrazil1 in 12K
- ARArgentina≈1 in 21K
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.
- Brazil (measured from records)
- Sources
- 147 (measured from records)
- 1 in 471 (inferred from the name graph)
18,155 people, 2022
Highest-authority source
Denmark
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
Slavic 'fox'; also related forms from LEUTE
Sources 1
- Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung
Attested across 14 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Lis 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BR Brazil | — | 18,155 | 1 in 12K | 18K | Lis | 103 |
| DK Denmark | — | 12,467 | 1 in 471 | 12K | — | — |
| AR Argentina | #800 | ≈2,100 est. | ≈1 in 21K | 234 | Lis | 73 |
| CO Colombia | — | ≈2,100 est. | ≈1 in 23K | — | Lis | 45 |
| US United States | — | 1,268 | 1 in 262K | 2.4K | Lis | 147 |
| SE Sweden | — | 1,067 | 1 in 9.6K | 1.1K | — | 5 |
| PY Paraguay | #600 | ≈870 est. | ≈1 in 8.3K | — | Lis | 20 |
| UY Uruguay | #448 | ≈57 est. | ≈1 in 59K | — | Lis | 22 |
18,155 people counted by IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror), 2022. 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: RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national); IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror); Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts); Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population). 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)
Lis 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.
from Polish and Czech dialect lis ‘fox’, a nickname for a cunning person or, in the case of the Jewish name, an ornamental name.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
nickname for a man with a bald pate, from a variant of Czech lysy ‘bald’.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
In Polish, ning person or, in the case of the Jewish name, ornamental name, from Pol. lis fox. Vars.: Pol. Lisiak; Lisiecki. Jewish: Liss, Lys(s), Lis(s)man, Lissak. Dims.: Pol.: Lisek, Lisik. Ukr.: Lysenko. Habitation names: Pol.: Lisowski, Liszewski.
as a nameA dictionary of surnames
perhaps a habitational name for someone who lived at a house distinguished by the sign of a lily. Old French lis.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
metronymic from a short form of the personal female names Alice or Elisabeth (see Lies).
as a nameDictionary of American Family 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.
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Lis Møllerb. 1918DKDanish journalist and politician (1918-1983)
- Lis Hartelb. 1921DKDanish equestrian (1921-2009)
- Lis Verhoevenb. 1931DEGerman actress (1931–2019)
- Lis Nilheimb. 1944SESwedish actress
- Lis Brack-Bernsenb. 1946DKDanish and Swiss mathematician
- Lis Sørensenb. 1955DKDanish singer
- Lis Vegab. 1977CUMexican ballet dancer and singer
- Lis Shoshib. 1994XKKosovan basketball player (born 1994)
- Lis Coleandroactress
- Lis Kernproducer and production manager
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 83 sources across 39 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| BR Brazil | IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror) | 2022 | 18K | — |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 18K | #1,130 |
| DK Denmark | Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts) | — | 12K | #56 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | 2020 | 9.8K | — |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Nomes (census name API) | — | 3.4K | #4,264 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 1.2K | #10,490 |
| SE Sweden | Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population) | — | 1.1K | #1,623 |
| SE Sweden | SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023) | 2020 | 447 | — |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 236 | #1,130 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 58 | #10,490 |
| AR Argentina | RENAPER — Nombres de nacimientos (2012–present) | 2024 | 21 | #1,546 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 11 | — |
Reference works 10
- 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)
- 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
- Hoffman, Polish Surnames: Origins and Meanings (2nd ed., 2012)
- jeantosti.com — Dictionnaire des noms de famille de France et d'ailleurs (Jean Tosti)
- Lietuvių pavardžių žodynas (Dictionary of Lithuanian Surnames)
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 are other forms of the name Lis?
- In the etymology graph, Elizabeth, Lisa and Isabel are forms of the same name in other languages.
- What does the name Lis mean, and where does it come from?
- Slavic 'fox'; also related forms from LEUTE Recorded by Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung.
- How do you pronounce Lis?
- A machine transcription gives /lis/ (IPA) for Spanish.
- Is Lis a male or female name?
- Lis 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.
- In which country does Lis have the most bearers?
- In Brazil, the national register counted about 18 thousand people named Lis, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled lis.
- Where is Lis most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Lis is densest in Denmark — about 1 in 471 people — even though Brazil holds more of our records for it.
- How common is the name Lis?
- In Brazil, the national register counted 18,155 people named Lis in 2022, about 1 in 12 thousand residents.
- How common is Lis compared with other names?
- In Uruguay, Lis is the 448th most common given name of 12,212 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Lis?
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/lisThe 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, “Lis” — the 448th most common given name in Uruguay. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.