Ĺow
surname · Latin script
Ĺow is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Malaysia than in any other country. In Singapore it is the 26th most common surname. Recorded meaning: From Middle English lowe, lohe, lāh, from Old Norse lágr (“low”), from Proto-Germanic *lēgaz (“lying, flat, situated near the ground, low”), from Proto-Indo-European *legʰ- (“to lie”).
- MYMalaysia≈1 in 357(inferred from the name graph)
- SGSingapore≈1 in 400
- AUAustralia≈1 in 4.9K
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.
- Malaysia (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 433 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 357 (inferred from the name graph)
≈91,000 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Malaysia, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
One other spelling is counted as the same name:
Locally spelled Low in US United States, MY Malaysia, AU Australia and 5 more.
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)
- Middle Englishlowe(measured from records)
- Old Norselágr“low”(measured from records)
- Proto-Germanic*lēgaz“lying“lying, flat, situated near the ground, low”(measured from records)
- Proto-Indo-European*legʰ-“to lie”(measured from records)
From Middle English lowe, lohe, lāh, from Old Norse lágr (“low”), from Proto-Germanic *lēgaz (“lying, flat, situated near the ground, low”), from Proto-Indo-European *legʰ- (“to lie”). Cognate with Scots laich (“low”), Low German leeg (“low, feeble, bad”), Danish lav (“low”), Icelandic lágur (“low”), West Frisian leech (“low”), North Frisian leeg, liig (“low”), Dutch laag (“low”), obsolete German läg (“low”). More at lie.
Sources 5
- A dictionary of surnames
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- The Oxford Names Companion - The definitive guide to Surnames, First Names, and Place Names of the British Isles
- Wiktionary
- Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Attested across 13 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Ĺow 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MY Malaysia | #108 | ≈91,000 est. | ≈1 in 357 | — | Low | 150 |
| CN China | — | ≈59,000 est. | ≈1 in 23K | — | Low | 28 |
| SG Singapore | #26 | ≈16,000 est. | ≈1 in 400 | — | Low | 191 |
| US United States | — | 12,032 | 1 in 28K | 12K | Low | 433 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | ≈5,900 est. | ≈1 in 11K | listed | Low | 211 |
| AU Australia | #442 | ≈5,200 est. | ≈1 in 4.9K | — | Low | 192 |
| CA Canada | — | ≈3,700 est. | ≈1 in 10K | — | Low | 195 |
| NZ New Zealand | #594 | ≈740 est. | ≈1 in 6.6K | — | Low | 105 |
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. 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).
Evidence(measured from records)
No register attests this spelling yet
Frequently asked questions
- What does the name Ĺow mean, and where does it come from?
- From Middle English lowe, lohe, lāh, from Old Norse lágr (“low”), from Proto-Germanic *lēgaz (“lying, flat, situated near the ground, low”), from Proto-Indo-European *legʰ- (“to lie”). Recorded by A dictionary of surnames and The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland and 3 other sources.
- In which country does Ĺow have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 91 thousand people named Ĺow in Malaysia, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled low.
- How common is the name Ĺow?
- In the United States, the national register counted 12,032 people named Ĺow in 2010, about 1 in 28 thousand residents.
- How common is Ĺow compared with other names?
- In Malaysia, Ĺow is the 108th most common surname of 291,743 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Ĺow?
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/%C4%BAowThe 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, “Ĺow” — the 108th most common surname in Malaysia. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.