Leek
surname · Latin script
Meaning: nic^ame for an uneducated or ignorant person, from Dutch leek ‘layman’
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/liːk/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Leek is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country.
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 48K(inferred from the name graph)
- AUAustralia≈1 in 76K
- USUnited States1 in 103K
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)
- Sources
- 288 (measured from records)
- 1 in 28K (inferred from the name graph)
≈19,000 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Netherlands
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
nic^ame for an uneducated or ignorant person, from Dutch leek ‘layman’.
Sources 1
- Dictionary of American Family Names
Attested across 11 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Leek 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 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CN China | ≈19,000 est. | ≈1 in 73K | — | Leek | 6 |
| US United States | 3,228 | 1 in 103K | 3.2K | Leek | 288 |
| GB United Kingdom | ≈1,400 est. | ≈1 in 48K | listed | Leek | 150 |
| NL Netherlands | 622 | 1 in 28K | 622 | Leek | 49 |
| IT Italy | ≈530 est. | ≈1 in 119K | — | Leek | 7 |
| SE Sweden | 361 | 1 in 28K | 361 | Leek | 25 |
| AU Australia | ≈340 est. | ≈1 in 76K | 1 | Leek | 69 |
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; the hanks-dictionary-surnames-1988 register; SA BDM — Popular baby names South Australia (1944–present); CBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007); Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population). 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)
Leek 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, habitational name from a place so named in Schleswig-Holstein.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
In English, A vegetable of variety Allium ampeloprasum, having edible leaves and an onion-like bulb but with a milder flavour than the onion.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In English, probably an altered spelling of Lech.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
In English, variant spelling of Leake.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
In English, variant of Leake.
as a nameDictionary of American Family 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)
- Sybil Leekb. 1917GBBritish astrologer (1917–1982)
- Geoff Leekb. 1932AUAustralian rules footballer and commentator
- Ken Leekb. 1935GBWelsh footballer (1935–2007)
- John Anthony Leekb. 1941GB(born 1941)
- Saskia Leekb. 1970NZNew Zealand artist (born 1970)
- Christopher Leekb. 1975GB(born 1975)
- Henrik Leekb. 1990SESwedish curler
- Miranda Leekb. 1993USAmerican archer
- Ellie Leekb. 1995GBWelsh footballer
- Jeffrey T. LeekUSbiostatistician and data scientist
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 24 sources across 13 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 3.2K | #9,991 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 3.1K | #9,697 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 2.9K | #10,516 |
| NL Netherlands | CBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007) | 2007 | 622 | #3,004 |
| SE Sweden | Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population) | — | 361 | #2,498 |
| GB United Kingdom | A Dictionary of Surnames (Hanks & Hodges, 1988) | — | — | — |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 5
- 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
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
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 does the name Leek mean, and where does it come from?
- nic^ame for an uneducated or ignorant person, from Dutch leek ‘layman’. Recorded by Dictionary of American Family Names.
- What are other forms of the name Leek?
- In the etymology graph, Lauch, Garlic and Лук are forms of the same name in other languages.
- How do you pronounce Leek?
- A machine transcription gives /liːk/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does Leek have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 19 thousand people named Leek in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled leek.
- Where is Leek most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Leek is densest in the Netherlands — about 1 in 28 thousand people — even though China holds more of our records for it.
- How common is the name Leek?
- In the United States, the national register counted 3,228 people named Leek in 2010, about 1 in 103 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Leek?
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/leekThe 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, “Leek”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.