Luc
given name · Latin script
Meaning, in French: From Latin lux, 'light'; associated with clarity and dawn. Saint/name-day not given on this page
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/lyk/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Luc is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in France than in any other country. In Belgium it is the 68th most common given name.
- BEBelgium≈1 in 368(inferred from the name graph)
- FRFrance≈1 in 1.4K
- CACanada≈1 in 2.5K
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.
- France (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 385 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 368 (inferred from the name graph)
≈48,000 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Belgium, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
From Latin lux, 'light'; associated with clarity and dawn. Saint/name-day not given on this page.
Sources 1
- Dictionnaire généalogique des prénoms
Attested across 13 languages in the etymology graph.
How Luc is read(measured from records)
Luc is one spelling over 3 language communities, and the dictionaries record it differently in 2 of them. Each row is what a source recorded for that language, beside the share of this name’s records the language holds. No single row is the name’s meaning.
- French72%
From Latin lux, 'light'; associated with clarity and dawn. Saint/name-day not given on this page.
as a nameDictionnaire généalogique des prénoms
French form of Luke/Lucius, from Latin lux, 'light'.
as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
From Latin Lucius or Lucas, linked to lux 'light'.
as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
topographic name from Latin lucus ‘wood’, or a habitational name from places in Aveyron and Lozere named with this word.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
from the personal name Luc, a vernacular form of Lucas.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
- English10%
from biblical Luc/Luke; earliest cited form Lewelin ap Luccas, 1292 (B13 227).
as a nameWelsh Surnames
- Vietnamese7.1%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Luc in Vietnamese.
The share is ours — how much of this name’s records each language holds. The sense beside it is the source’s, quoted and credited, including where it names a gender. We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.
Often considered alongside
Names that people choosing a name often weigh against Luc, most often first. They share a style rather than an origin.
From the names suggested together in public name-advice forums, in English. A list of what people consider, not a measure of how common any name is.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Luc 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FR France | #162 | ≈48,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.4K | 65K | Luc | 385 |
| BE Belgium | #68 | ≈32,000 est. | ≈1 in 368 | 398 | Luc | 158 |
| CD Congo - Kinshasa | #166 | ≈21,000 est. | ≈1 in 4.9K | — | Luc | 23 |
| CM Cameroon | #156 | ≈17,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.7K | — | Luc | 40 |
| CA Canada | #445 | ≈15,000 est. | ≈1 in 2.5K | 3 | Luc | 225 |
| NL Netherlands | — | ≈6,200 est. | ≈1 in 2.8K | 6.4K | Luc | 76 |
| US United States | — | 5,827 | 1 in 57K | 5.2K | Luc | 305 |
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: INSEE — Fichier des prénoms (1900–2024); Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender; Familienaam.be — Belgian family-name frequency (population register); Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (live per-name BRP counts, 1790-2017). 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).
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Luc de Clapiers, marquis de Vauvenarguesb. 1715FRFrench writer, a moralist (1715-1747)
- Luc Montagnierb. 1932FRFrench virologist and joint recipient of the Nobel Prize of Physiology or Medicine (2008)
- Alain Finkielkrautb. 1949FRnot in their usual nameFrench philosopher (born 1949)
- Richard Claydermanb. 1953FRnot in their usual nameFrench pianist
- Luc Dardenneb. 1954BEBelgian director, film producer and screenwriter
- Luc Barnierb. 1954FRFrench film editor (1954–2012)
- Luc Bessonb. 1959FRFrench filmmaker (born 1959)
- Luc Jacquetb. 1967FRFrench film director
- Luc Nilisb. 1967BEBelgian association football player
- Simon Mignoletb. 1988BEnot in their usual nameBelgian association football 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)
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 100 sources across 47 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des prénoms (1900–2024) | 2024 | 65K | #824 |
| NL Netherlands | Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (live per-name BRP counts, 1790-2017) | — | 6.4K | #570 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 5.2K | #3,545 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 612 | #3,545 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 33 | — |
| CA Canada | Statistics Canada — First names at birth by sex at birth (Table 17-10-0147-01) | 2024 | 17 | — |
| NL Netherlands | Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (live per-name BRP counts, 1790-2017) | — | 9 | #30,513 |
| CA Canada | Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender | 2024 | 3 | #1,147 |
Reference works 9
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- 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)
- 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
- jeantosti.com — Dictionnaire des noms de famille de France et d'ailleurs (Jean Tosti)
- 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 are other forms of the name Luc?
- In the etymology graph, Lucas, Luke and Luca are forms of the same name in other languages.
- How do you pronounce Luc?
- A machine transcription gives /lyk/ (IPA) for French.
- What does the name Luc mean, and where does it come from?
- From Latin lux, 'light'; associated with clarity and dawn. Saint/name-day not given on this page. Recorded by Dictionnaire généalogique des prénoms.
- Is Luc a male or female name?
- Luc is a male 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 Luc have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 48 thousand people named Luc in France, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled luc.
- How common is the name Luc?
- In the United States, the national register counted 5,827 people named Luc in 2020, about 1 in 57 thousand residents.
- How common is Luc compared with other names?
- In France, Luc is the 162nd most common given name of 754,146 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Luc?
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/lucThe 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, “Luc” — the 162nd most common given name in France. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.