Love
surname · Latin script
Meaning: from Old English male and female names meaning ‘beloved’, or from a nickname for a wolf-like or rapacious person
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/lʌv/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Love is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Ethiopia than in any other country. In Ghana it is the 88th most common surname.
- GHGhana≈1 in 1.3K(inferred from the name graph)
- SGSingapore≈1 in 2.9K
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 3.9K
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.
- Ethiopia (inferred from the name graph)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 546 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 834 (inferred from the name graph)
≈130,000 people, est.
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Ethiopia, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
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)
from Old English male and female names meaning ‘beloved’, or from a nickname for a wolf-like or rapacious person
Sources 1
- Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Attested across 18 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Love 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ET Ethiopia | #808 | ≈130,000 est. | ≈1 in 834 | — | Love | 13 |
| US United States | #295 | 82,873 | 1 in 4K | 84K | Love | 546 |
| NG Nigeria | #895 | ≈40,000 est. | ≈1 in 5.3K | — | Love | 70 |
| GH Ghana | #88 | ≈22,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.3K | — | Love | 40 |
| GB United Kingdom | #392 | ≈17,000 est. | ≈1 in 3.9K | 24 | Love | 265 |
| AU Australia | #375 | ≈6,500 est. | ≈1 in 3.9K | 1 | Love | 203 |
| SG Singapore | #211 | ≈2,200 est. | ≈1 in 2.9K | — | Love | 36 |
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 2020; Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register); SA BDM — Popular baby names South Australia (1944–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)
Love 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 Old French love, ‘wolf’; chiefly associated with Renfrewshire and Lanarkshire, with Thomas Lufe recorded in Glasgow in 1472.
as a nameScottish Surnames
In English, from OE lufu 'love', a popular woman's name, or OE Lufa (m); also AFr louve 'wolf'; first attested Lufe c1095 Bury (Sf)
as a nameA Dictionary of English Surnames
In English, 2. English and Scottish: nickname from Anglo-Norman French lo(u)ve ‘female wolf’ (a feminine form of lou). This nickname was fairly commonly used for men, in an approving sense. No doubt it was reinforced by crossing with post-Conquest survivals of the masculine version of
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
A personal name from Old French love, ‘wolf’. As a surname it was mostly associated with Renfrewshire and Lanarkshire; Thomas Lufe is recorded in Glasgow, 1472. See also Wolfe.
as a nameScottish Surnames
In English, from a Middle English personal name derived from the Old English female personal name Lufu ‘love’, or the masculine equivalent Lufa. Compare Leaf
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)
- Augustus Edward Hough Loveb. 1863GBEnglish mathematician (1863–1940)
- Bessie Loveb. 1898USAmerican actress (1898–1986)
- Darlene Loveb. 1941USAmerican musician
- Mike Loveb. 1941USAmerican singer
- Bob Loveb. 1942USAmerican basketball player (1942–2024)
- Courtney Loveb. 1964USAmerican rock musician (born 1964)
- CeCe Winansb. 1964USnot in their usual nameAmerican gospel singer
- Brandi Loveb. 1973USAmerican pornographic actress (born 1973)
- Darris Loveb. 1980USAmerican actor
- Kevin Loveb. 1988USAmerican basketball player (born 1988)
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)
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 73 sources across 39 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 84K | #371 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 83K | #385 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 78K | #363 |
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)
- Søndergaard, Georg, Danske efternavne (Lademann 1984/1991)
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 Love mean, and where does it come from?
- from Old English male and female names meaning ‘beloved’, or from a nickname for a wolf-like or rapacious person Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
- How do you pronounce Love?
- A machine transcription gives /lʌv/ (IPA) for English.
- What are other forms of the name Love?
- In the etymology graph, Vico and Liebe are forms of the same name in other languages.
- How common is the name Love?
- In the United States, the national register counted 82,873 people named Love in 2010, about 1 in 4.0 thousand residents.
- How common is Love compared with other names?
- In Ethiopia, Love is the 808th most common surname of 22,571 surnames recorded there.
- In which country does Love have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 130 thousand people named Love in Ethiopia, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled love.
What do you want to know about Love?
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/loveThe 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, “Love” — the 808th most common surname in Ethiopia. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.