Lorraine
given name · Latin script
Meaning: French placename used as a first name in Ireland; linked with St Joan of Arc and originally the Kingdom of Lotharingia
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/lɔɹeɪn/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Lorraine is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country. In Australia it is the 54th most common given name.
- IEIreland≈1 in 864(inferred from the name graph)
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 956
- NZNew Zealand≈1 in 1.2K
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Where a country counts another spelling of the name rather than Lorraine itself, the figure is that spelling’s, and it is named. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- China (inferred from the name graph)
- #247 (measured from records)
- 3 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 637 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 864 (inferred from the name graph)
≈630,000 people, est.
of 15M given names
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Ireland, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Locally spelled Lauren in US United States, GB United Kingdom, AU Australia.
Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
French placename used as a first name in Ireland; linked with St Joan of Arc and originally the Kingdom of Lotharingia.
Sources 1
- Irish first names
Attested across 6 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Lorraine 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CN China | — | ≈630,000 est. | ≈1 in 2.2K | — | Lorraine | 62 |
| US United States | #111 | 449,365as Lauren | 1 in 740 | 446K | Lauren | 637 |
| GB United Kingdom | #83 | ≈69,000 est. | ≈1 in 956 | 4 | Lauren | 370 |
| AU Australia | #54 | ≈45,000 est. | ≈1 in 566 | 94 | Lauren | 286 |
| ZA South Africa | #97 | ≈34,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.7K | — | Lorraine | 143 |
| BR Brazil | — | 18,690 | 1 in 11K | 19K | — | 6 |
| IE Ireland | #70 | ≈6,000 est. | ≈1 in 864 | 124 | Lorraine | 132 |
| NZ New Zealand | #110 | ≈4,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.2K | 13 | Lorraine | 171 |
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; NISRA — Baby names Northern Ireland full list (1997–present); NSW BDM — Popular baby names (1952–present); IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror); CSO — Irish Babies Names (1998–present); DIA — Baby name popularity (1900–present). 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)
Lorraine 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 French, From the French region name Lorraine, originally from Lotharingia.
as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
In English, Old German; from the province on the border of France and Germany.
as a nameBaby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…
In English, From the province on the old German border of France, Germany
as a nameBaby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…
In English, French placename; from Lorraine, eastern France
as a nameBaby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…
In French, Loughan see Logan raine in NE France, so called from the Gmc tribal name Lotharingi ‘people of Lothar’ (a personal name composed of the elements hlod famous, renowned + hari, heri army); cf. the mod. Ger. name of the region, Lothringen. Loughlan see Lachlan Vars.: Fr.: (Le) Lorrain. Eng.: Loraine; Lor(r)ain, Lo(a)ring. Ger. and Jewish (W Ashkenazic): Lotring, Lot(h)ringer.
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)
- Jane Powellb. 1929USnot in their usual nameAmerican actress, dancer, and singer (1929-2021)
- Lorraine Hansberryb. 1930USAfrican-American playwright and author (1930-1965)
- Lorraine Garyb. 1937USAmerican actress
- Lorraine Braccob. 1954USAmerican actress
- Lorraine Desmaraisb. 1956CACanadian jazz pianist and composer
- Lorraine Kellyb. 1959GBScottish presenter and journalist
- Lorraine Toussaintb. 1960USTrinidadian actress
- Lorraine Downesb. 1964NZNew Zealand beauty pageant contestant
- Shaniceb. 1973USnot in their usual nameAmerican singer-songwriter, actress and dancer
- Lorraine Nicholsonb. 1990USAmerican 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 88 sources across 48 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 107K | #526 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror) | 2022 | 19K | — |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 19K | #1,114 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Nomes (census name API) | — | 18K | #1,501 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | 2020 | 592 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 238 | — |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 134 | #526 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 107 | #1,114 |
| AU Australia | AU state BDM — consolidated top baby names (NSW + SA + QLD) | 1966 | 94 | #82 |
| AU Australia | NSW BDM — Popular baby names (1952–present) | 1966 | 94 | #82 |
| AU Australia | QLD BDM — Top 100 Baby Names Queensland (1960–present) | 1964 | 38 | — |
| NZ New Zealand | DIA — Baby name popularity (1900–present) | 1995 | 10 | — |
Reference works 8
- 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
- Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
- 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 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- What does the name Lorraine mean, and where does it come from?
- French placename used as a first name in Ireland; linked with St Joan of Arc and originally the Kingdom of Lotharingia. Recorded by Irish first names.
- What are other forms of the name Lorraine?
- In the etymology graph, Laura, Lorena and Loraine are forms of the same name in other languages; Lori is a recorded short or pet form.
- Is Lorraine a male or female name?
- Lorraine is recorded for both men and women. We don't publish a percentage split: a record's gender belongs to the person and is attached to every given name on that record, so names in cultures where a name string also carries a parent's or spouse's given name pick up large cross-gender counts.
- How do you pronounce Lorraine?
- A machine transcription gives /lɔɹeɪn/ (IPA) for English.
- How common is the name Lorraine?
- In Brazil, the national register counted 18,690 people named Lorraine in 2022, about 1 in 11 thousand residents.
- How common is Lorraine compared with other names?
- In Australia, Lorraine is the 54th most common given name of 205,854 given names recorded there.
- In which country does Lorraine have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 629 thousand people named Lorraine in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled lorraine.
What do you want to know about Lorraine?
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/lorraineThe 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, “Lorraine” — the 54th most common given name in Australia. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.