Lawrence
given name · Latin script
Meaning: from the male personal name Laurence, ultimately from Latin Laurentius, literally ‘person from Laurentum’
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/lɒɹəns/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Lawrence is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country. In Singapore it is the 100th most common given name.
- NZNew Zealand≈1 in 884(inferred from the name graph)
- CACanada≈1 in 952
- SGSingapore≈1 in 972
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Where a country counts another spelling of the name rather than Lawrence itself, the figure is that spelling’s, and it is named. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- United States (measured from records)
- #352 (measured from records)
- 4 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 596 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 884 (inferred from the name graph)
240,687 people, 2020
of 15M given names
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
New Zealand, 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 the male personal name Laurence, ultimately from Latin Laurentius, literally ‘person from Laurentum’
Sources 1
- Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Attested across 11 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Lawrence 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | #147 | 240,687 | 1 in 1.4K | 240K | Lawrence | 596 |
| NG Nigeria | #248 | ≈190,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.1K | — | Lawrence | 114 |
| GB United Kingdom | #197 | ≈67,000 est. | ≈1 in 985 | listed | Lawrence | 324 |
| EG Egypt | #791 | ≈46,000 est. | ≈1 in 2.2K | — | Lawrence | 28 |
| ZA South Africa | #146 | ≈40,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.4K | — | Lawrence | 125 |
| CA Canada | #173 | ≈40,000 est. | ≈1 in 952 | 6 | Lawrence | 274 |
| NL Netherlands | — | 16,935as Laurens | 1 in 1K | 17K | Lawrence | 85 |
| SG Singapore | #100 | ≈6,400 est. | ≈1 in 972 | — | Lawrence | 130 |
| NZ New Zealand | #154 | ≈5,600 est. | ≈1 in 884 | 15 | Lawrence | 138 |
240,687 people counted by Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex, 2020. 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 — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender; Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (all-time BRP bearer counts, 2018); DIA — Baby name popularity (1900–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)
Lawrence 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, Lorens, Laurence (L Laurentius ‘man from Laurentum', a Lay see Lee town in Italy probably named from its laurels or bay trees). Layborn see Leyburn I'he name was borne by a saint who was martyred at Rome in the 3rd cent, ad; he enjoyed a considerable cult through¬
as a nameThe Oxford Names Companion - The definitive guide to Surnames, First Names, and Place Names of the British Isles
Anglicized spelling of Laurence. This is the usual spelling of the surname, and is now becoming increasingly common as a given name, especially in North America. Pet form: Larry.
as a nameA concise dictionary of first names
In English, A male given name from Latin, the usual spelling of Laurence in the U.S.; masculine of Lauren
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In English, physicist (Nobel J 939); T(homas)
as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names
In English, E(dward), British adventurer &
as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper 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)
- Percival Lowellb. 1855USnot in their usual nameAmerican astronomer (1855-1916)
- William Lawrence Braggb. 1890GBAustralian-born British physicist and X-ray crystallographer
- Lawrence Kleinb. 1920USAmerican economist (1920-2013)
- E. L. Doctorowb. 1931USnot in their usual namenovelist, editor, professor (1931-2015)
- Bernard Madoffb. 1938USnot in their usual nameAmerican fraudster and financier (1938–2021)
- Robert Lawrence Stineb. 1943USAmerican novelist (born 1943)
- Larry Ellisonb. 1944USnot in their usual nameAmerican internet entrepreneur and businessman (born 1944)
- David Schwimmerb. 1966USnot in their usual nameAmerican actor (born 1966)
- Lawrence Mark "Larry" Sangerb. 1968USAmerican former professor, co-founder of Wikipedia, founder of Citizendium and other projects (born 1968)
- Robert Sean Leonardb. 1969USnot in their usual nameAmerican actor
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 110 sources across 55 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 130K | #232 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 124K | #246 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 124K | #219 |
Reference works 9
- 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)
- 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
- Hoffman, Polish Surnames: Origins and Meanings (2nd ed., 2012)
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 Lawrence?
- In the etymology graph, Lorenzo, Laurent and Lor are forms of the same name in other languages.
- What does the name Lawrence mean, and where does it come from?
- from the male personal name Laurence, ultimately from Latin Laurentius, literally ‘person from Laurentum’ Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
- Is Lawrence a male or female name?
- Lawrence 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 Lawrence have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 241 thousand people named Lawrence, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled lawrence.
- How do you pronounce Lawrence?
- A machine transcription gives /lɒɹəns/ (IPA) for English.
- How common is the name Lawrence?
- In the United States, the national register counted 240,687 people named Lawrence in 2020, about 1 in 1.4 thousand residents.
- How common is Lawrence compared with other names?
- In the United States, Lawrence is the 147th most common given name of 2,815,431 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Lawrence?
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/lawrenceThe 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, “Lawrence” — the 147th most common given name in United States. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.