L-O

org · Latin script

Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published

L-O is a name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country. In Hong Kong it is the 64th most common surname. Recorded meaning: From Betawi Kota lo (“you”), from Hokkien 汝 (lú). Doublet of lu.

rarermore common
  • HKHong Kong≈1 in 129(inferred from the name graph)
  • MYMalaysia≈1 in 1.7K
  • SGSingapore≈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.

China (inferred from the name graph)

≈270,000 people, est.

Sources
460 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

≈1 in 129 (inferred from the name graph)

Hong Kong, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Spellings & scripts(measured from records)

2 other spellings are counted as the same name:

Locally spelled Lo in US United States, MY Malaysia, HK Hong Kong and 3 more and Lô in SN Senegal.

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)

Derivation of L-O: each step is the form the one above it came from.
L-O
  1. Betawi Kotalo“you”(measured from records)
  2. Hokkien汝lú(measured from records)

From Betawi Kota lo (“you”), from Hokkien 汝 (lú). Doublet of lu.

Sources 6

  • Dictionary of American Family Names
  • 국립국어원 외래어 표기 용례 자료 (NIKL loanword/foreign-name transcription examples)
  • Wiktionary
  • Förnamn i Sverige. Kortfattat namnlexikon
  • Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]

Where in the world(measured from records)

L-O 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.

Where L-O is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
CN China—≈270,000 est.≈1 in 5.1K—Lo64
SN Senegal—≈72,000 est.≈1 in 22046Lô36
HK Hong Kong#64≈56,000 est.≈1 in 129—Lo127
MY Malaysia#367≈19,000 est.≈1 in 1.7K—Lo98
US United States—17,6871 in 19K19KLo460
IT Italy—≈16,000 est.≈1 in 4KlistedLo112
SG Singapore#334≈1,600 est.≈1 in 3.9K—Lo114

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; DGE — candidate declarations, 41 party/coalition lists (legislatives anticipees 17 Nov 2024). 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 names spelled this way(inferred from the name graph)

L-O is also recorded as 3 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • French surname12 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in France, Italy, Belgium, United States

    Also written Lo, L'O, Lô, Lö, Lo'

  • Norwegian surname22 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Sweden, Norway, Denmark

    Languages: Norwegian, Swedish, Danish

    Also written Lo, Lö, Ló, Lò, Lô

  • Spanish surname57 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Argentina, United States, Mexico, Brazil

    Languages: Spanish, Portuguese, Italian

    Also written Lo, Ló, Lô, Lö, Lo'

11 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Evidence(measured from records)

No register attests this spelling yet

None of the official registers or reference works in our corpus lists L-O under this spelling. The statistics on this page rest on person records, and the related names are inferred from the name graph.

Frequently asked questions

What does the name L-O mean, and where does it come from?
From Betawi Kota lo (“you”), from Hokkien 汝 (lú). Doublet of lu. Recorded by Dictionary of American Family Names and 국립국어원 외래어 표기 용례 자료 (NIKL loanword/foreign-name transcription examples) and 4 other sources.
In which country does L-O have the most bearers?
Mondonomo estimates about 274 thousand people named L-O in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled lo.
How common is the name L-O?
In the United States, the national register counted 17,687 people named L-O in 2010, about 1 in 19 thousand residents.
How common is L-O compared with other names?
In Hong Kong, L-O is the 64th most common surname of 8,142 surnames recorded there.

What do you want to know about L-O?

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Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/l-o

The 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, “L-O” — the 64th most common surname in Hong Kong. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how L-O parses inside a full name →