Louw

surname · Latin script

Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise

Louw is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country. In Montserrat it is the 3rd most common surname. Recorded meaning: synonym of zeelt (“tench (Tinca tinca)”).

rarermore common
  • USUnited States1 in 1.1M(measured from records)
  • NLNetherlands1 in 62K
  • DKDenmark1 in 73K

carrying the name, as counted by each country's national register. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.

United States (measured from records)

297 people, 2010

Sources
134 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

1 in 62K (inferred from the name graph)

Netherlands

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Meaning & origin(measured from records)

synonym of zeelt (“tench (Tinca tinca)”)

Sources 1

  • kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

Where in the world(measured from records)

Louw 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.

Where Louw is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
US United States—2971 in 1.1M430Louw134
NL Netherlands—2771 in 62K329Louw59
DK Denmark—801 in 73K80—2
BE Belgium—481 in 244K48—7
ES Spain—331 in 1.5M33—5
CH Switzerland—221 in 382K22—5
SE Sweden—111 in 928K11—2
MS Montserrat#3———Louw1

297 people counted by Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010, 2010. 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 2020; CBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007); Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (all-time BRP bearer counts, 2018); Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts); Familienaam.be — Belgian family-name frequency (population register); INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos); INE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal); BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames); 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 names spelled this way(inferred from the name graph)

Louw is also recorded as another name, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • French surname6 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in South Africa, France, United States, Argentina

    Languages: French, Portuguese, Spanish

    Also written Loùw

48 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Other recorded senses(measured from records)

Louw is also recorded in 2 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

  • In German, Wohnstättenname zu Lau/Laue; univerbierte Form. 13 Belege; zeigt Laut- und Schreibvariation.

    as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 3: Morphologie der Familiennamen

  • In Afrikaans, From German "Lowe", meaning "lion".

    as a wordsanames.co.za — South African surnames

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)

1850190019502000Japie Louw, b. 1867Eric Louw, b. 1890Eli Louw, b. 1927Gene Louw, b. 1931Johannes P. Louw, b. 1932Rudi Louw, b. 1985Gideon Louw, b. 1987Tiaan Louw, b. 1988Kylie Ann Louw, b. 1989Anya Louw, b. 2000

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).

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 26 sources across 14 countries.

Official registers attesting Louw
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20202020430#52,161
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20102010297#66,553
NL NetherlandsCBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007)2007277#7,470
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20002000202#85,996
DK DenmarkDanmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts)—80#6,773
BE BelgiumFamilienaam.be — Belgian family-name frequency (population register)200848#27,023
ES SpainINE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal)—33#59,874
ES SpainINE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos)—33#58,864
CH SwitzerlandBFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames)202422#34,100
SE SwedenSkatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population)—11#37,440
US United Stateswru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.)———

Reference works 5

  • 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)
  • 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 Louw mean, and where does it come from?
synonym of zeelt (“tench (Tinca tinca)”) Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
In which country does Louw have the most bearers?
In the United States, the national register counted about 297 people named Louw, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled louw.
Where is Louw most common?
Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Louw is densest in the Netherlands — about 1 in 62 thousand people — even though United States holds more of our records for it.
How common is the name Louw?
In the United States, the national register counted 297 people named Louw in 2010, about 1 in 1.1 million residents.
How common is Louw compared with other names?
In Montserrat, Louw is the 3rd most common surname of 31 surnames recorded there.

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Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/louw

The same payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. Rate-limited for casual use; a free API key gives 1,000 requests a day, and bulk access is licensed separately.

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, “Louw” — the 3rd most common surname in Montserrat. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Louw parses inside a full name →