Laurence
given name · Latin script
Meaning, in French: French feminine form of Laurence/Lawrence, from Latin Laurentius, 'from Laurentum'
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/loʁɑ̃s/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Laurence is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in France than in any other country, where it is the 76th most common given name.
- FRFrance≈1 in 456(inferred from the name graph)
- BEBelgium≈1 in 757
- CHSwitzerland≈1 in 2.6K
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
- 396 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 456 (inferred from the name graph)
≈150,000 people, est.
Highest-authority source
France, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
French feminine form of Laurence/Lawrence, from Latin Laurentius, 'from Laurentum'.
Sources 1
- Le grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
Attested across 13 languages in the etymology graph.
How Laurence is read(measured from records)
Laurence is one spelling over 2 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.
- French55%
French feminine form of Laurence/Lawrence, from Latin Laurentius, 'from Laurentum'.
as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
a female given name, masculine equivalent Laurent, equivalent to English Lauren
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
du latin Laurentius, « de Laurentum »; lié au laurier. Fête: 10 août, saint Laurent.
as a nameDictionnaire généalogique des prénoms
- English36%
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 We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Laurence 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 | #76 | ≈150,000 est. | ≈1 in 456 | 182K | Laurence | 396 |
| US United States | — | 22,752 | 1 in 15K | 22K | Laurence | 341 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | ≈17,000 est. | ≈1 in 3.9K | — | Laurence | 151 |
| PH Philippines | — | ≈16,000 est. | ≈1 in 6.6K | — | Laurence | 71 |
| BE Belgium | #92 | ≈15,000 est. | ≈1 in 757 | 15 | Laurence | 148 |
| CM Cameroon | #408 | ≈7,500 est. | ≈1 in 3.7K | — | Laurence | 19 |
| CH Switzerland | #548 | ≈3,300 est. | ≈1 in 2.6K | 14 | Laurence | 98 |
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); Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; Statbel — Prénoms nouveau-nés (newborns); BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames). 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)
Laurence is also recorded in one other lexicon, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In Irish, Latin name meaning “of Laurentum”; used for St Lorcan (Laurence) O'Toole.
as a nameIrish first 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)
- Laurence Sterneb. 1713IEAnglo-Irish novelist and Anglican cleric (1713–1768)
- Henry Ganttb. 1861USnot in their usual nameAmerican engineer (1861-1919)
- Laurence Olivierb. 1907GBEnglish actor and director (1907–1989)
- Laurence Harveyb. 1928LTLithuanian-born British actor (1928-1973)
- Bob Barrb. 1948USnot in their usual nameAmerican attorney and politician (born 1948)
- Larry Finkb. 1952USnot in their usual nameAmerican Billionaire Business Person and Board Member, Chairman and CEO of BlackRock
- Laurence Fishburneb. 1961USAmerican actor
- Laurence Foxb. 1978GBBritish actor
- Iris Mittenaereb. 1993FRnot in their usual nameFrench beauty pageant winner (born 1993)
- Countess Eloise of Orange-Nassaub. 2002NLnot in their usual nameDutch noble
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 101 sources across 52 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des prénoms (1900–2024) | 2014 | 182K | #3,109 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 22K | #1,478 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 1.2K | #1,478 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 93 | — |
| BE Belgium | Statbel — Prénoms nouveau-nés (newborns) | 2024 | 15 | #576 |
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 are other forms of the name Laurence?
- In the etymology graph, Laure is a form of the same name in other languages.
- Is Laurence a male or female name?
- Laurence is a female 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.
- What does the name Laurence mean, and where does it come from?
- French feminine form of Laurence/Lawrence, from Latin Laurentius, 'from Laurentum'. Recorded by Le grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education).
- How do you pronounce Laurence?
- A machine transcription gives /loʁɑ̃s/ (IPA) for French.
- In which country does Laurence have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 149 thousand people named Laurence in France, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled laurence.
- How common is the name Laurence?
- In the United States, the national register counted 22,752 people named Laurence in 2020, about 1 in 15 thousand residents.
- How common is Laurence compared with other names?
- In France, Laurence is the 76th most common given name of 754,146 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Laurence?
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/laurenceThe 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, “Laurence” — the 76th most common given name in France. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.