Legge
surname · Latin script
Meaning: (i) Person with remarkable legs; (ii) a different form of Leigh
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/lɛɡ/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Legge is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country.
- AUAustralia≈1 in 28K(inferred from the name graph)
- CACanada≈1 in 29K
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 31K
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
- 292 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 28K (inferred from the name graph)
≈6,700 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Australia, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
(i) Person with remarkable legs; (ii) a different form of Leigh.
Sources 1
- Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Attested across 7 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Legge 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 | ≈6,700 est. | ≈1 in 208K | — | Legge | 4 |
| GB United Kingdom | ≈2,100 est. | ≈1 in 31K | — | Legge | 170 |
| US United States | 2,088 | 1 in 159K | 2.2K | Legge | 292 |
| CA Canada | ≈1,300 est. | ≈1 in 29K | — | Legge | 147 |
| IT Italy | ≈940 est. | ≈1 in 66K | listed | Legge | 28 |
| AU Australia | ≈920 est. | ≈1 in 28K | — | Legge | 120 |
| IE Ireland | ≈130 est. | ≈1 in 40K | — | Legge | 24 |
| NZ New Zealand | ≈76 est. | ≈1 in 65K | — | Legge | 32 |
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 2000; the xinhua-italian-manual register. 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)
Legge 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, Obsolete spelling of leg.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Stranger.
as a nameThe African book of names
In Irish, Authorities on surnames differ as to the derivation of this English name which is found in Ulster. O'Donovan states that it was used as the anglicized form of Mac Coise ( cos, foot or leg), as also was another English name, Foote (see Quish)
as a nameThe Surnames of Ireland
In lmo, alternative form of lege (“law”)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Dutch, singular present subjunctive of leggen
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
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)
- William Legge, 1st Earl of Dartmouthb. 1672GBBritish noble
- William Leggeb. 1731GBBritish politician
- William Legge, 4th Earl of Dartmouthb. 1784GBBritish politician (1772-1849)
- James Leggeb. 1815GBScottish missionary and translator (1815–1897)
- William Legge, 6th Earl of Dartmouthb. 1851GBEnglish politician (1851-1936)
- William Legge, 7th Earl of Dartmouthb. 1881GBBritish politician (1881-1958)
- Walter Leggeb. 1906GBEnglish classical music producer (1906–1979)
- Raine Spencer, Countess Spencerb. 1929GBnot in their usual nameBritish socialite and local politician (1929-2016)
- William Leggeb. 1949GBBritish peer and politician (born 1949)
- Katherine Leggeb. 1980GBBritish racing driver
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 19 sources across 9 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 2.2K | #12,851 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 2.1K | #14,332 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 2K | #14,183 |
| IT Italy | 意大利语姓名译名手册 (Xinhua Italian Name Manual) | — | — | — |
| 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 Legge mean, and where does it come from?
- (i) Person with remarkable legs; (ii) a different form of Leigh. Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
- How do you pronounce Legge?
- A machine transcription gives /lɛɡ/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does Legge have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 6.7 thousand people named Legge in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled legge.
- How common is the name Legge?
- In the United States, the national register counted 2,088 people named Legge in 2010, about 1 in 159 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Legge?
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/leggeThe 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, “Legge”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.