Levy
surname · Latin script
Meaning: From the medieval personal name Lefwi, from Old English Leofwig, literally 'beloved war'
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/lɛvi/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Levy is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Brazil than in any other country, where it is the 7th most common given name.
- ZASouth Africa≈1 in 15K(inferred from the name graph)
- BRBrazil1 in 159as Luiz
- ESSpain1 in 1.4Kas Leo
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 Levy 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.
- Brazil (measured from records)
- #249 (measured from records)
- 3 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 526 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 15K (inferred from the name graph)
1,335,098 named Luiz, 2022
of 15M given names
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
South Africa, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
One other spelling is counted as the same name:
Locally spelled Luiz in BR Brazil, ES Spain, FI Finland.
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 medieval personal name Lefwi, from Old English Leofwig, literally 'beloved war'.
Sources 1
- Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Attested across 4 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Levy 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BR Brazil | #7 | 1,335,098as Luiz | 1 in 159 | 1.3M | Luiz | 284 |
| US United States | — | 136,747as Levi | 1 in 2.4K | 532K | Levy | 526 |
| ES Spain | — | 36,280as Leo | 1 in 1.4K | 36K | Luiz | 104 |
| SE Sweden | — | 23,276as Leo | 1 in 438 | 23K | — | 36 |
| FI Finland | — | 19,003as Leo | 1 in 293 | 31K | Luiz | 14 |
| ZA South Africa | — | ≈3,800 est. | ≈1 in 15K | — | Levy | 77 |
| HR Croatia | — | 2,914as Leo | 1 in 1.5K | 4.3K | — | 2 |
1,335,098 people counted by IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror), 2022. 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: IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror); Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos); DVV — Etunimitilasto (Finnish given names register); DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup); Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population); DZS — Imena i prezimena (per-token lookup form); DZS — Učestalost osobnih imena (Popis 2021). 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)
Levy 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.
Most common name before the Names Edict. Exists in the district of Upper Rhine, Breisach area, Mahlberg area, Alt- dorf, all over Baden 1809.
as a nameThe Origin of Jewish Family Names: Morphology and History
from the Biblical personal name Levi, from a Hebrew word meaning ‘joining’. This was borne by a son of Jacob and Leah (Genesis 29: 34). Bearers of this name are Levites, members of the tribe of Levi, who form a hereditary caste who assist the kohanim (see Cohen) in their priestly duties.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
In English, To impose (a tax or fine) to collect monies due, or to confiscate property.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
tribo de Levi
as a nameDicionario Sefaradi De SobrenomesDictionary Of Sephardic Surnames Inclusive Cristaos-Novos, Conversos, Marranos, Italianos,…
In English, Louis, US chess master
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)
- Paulette Goddardb. 1910USnot in their usual nameAmerican actress (1910–1990)
- Barbara Boxerb. 1940USnot in their usual nameAmerican politician, United States Senator from California
- Eugene Levyb. 1946CACanadian actor and comedian
- Sharon Osbourneb. 1952GBnot in their usual nameBritish-American television personality
- Gideon Levyb. 1953ILIsraeli journalist
- Dani Levyb. 1957CHSwiss-German actor, film director and screenwriter (b. 1957)
- Daniel Levyb. 1962GBBritish businessman (born 1962)
- Shawn Levyb. 1968USCanadian fimmaker (born 1968)
- William Levyb. 1980CUCuban actor
- Dan Levyb. 1983CACanadian actor, director, screenwriter, and producer (born 1983)
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 89 sources across 49 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 37K | #932 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 36K | #938 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 35K | #892 |
| ES Spain | INE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal) | — | 706 | #6,038 |
| ES Spain | INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos) | — | 706 | #6,031 |
| FI Finland | DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup) | — | 378 | #4,411 |
| SE Sweden | Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population) | — | 136 | #5,671 |
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
- 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
- Søndergaard, Georg, Danske efternavne (Lademann 1984/1991)
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 Levy mean, and where does it come from?
- From the medieval personal name Lefwi, from Old English Leofwig, literally 'beloved war'. Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
- How do you pronounce Levy?
- A machine transcription gives /lɛvi/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does Levy have the most bearers?
- In Brazil, the national register counted about 1.3 million people named Luiz, more than in any other country we hold.
- How common is the name Levy?
- In Brazil, the national register counted 1,335,098 people named Luiz in 2022, about 1 in 159 residents.
- How common is Levy compared with other names?
- In Brazil, Levy is the 7th most common given name of 474,894 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Levy?
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/levyThe 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, “Levy” — the 7th most common given name in Brazil. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.