Low
surname · Latin script
Meaning: person living near a hill, or from nicknames for a short person, a rapacious person, or a Scottish pet-form of Lawrence; also anglicized from Loewe
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/laʊ/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Low is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Malaysia than in any other country. In Singapore it is the 26th most common surname.
- MYMalaysia≈1 in 357(inferred from the name graph)
- SGSingapore≈1 in 400
- AUAustralia≈1 in 4.9K
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.
- Malaysia (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 433 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 357 (inferred from the name graph)
≈91,000 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Malaysia, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
person living near a hill, or from nicknames for a short person, a rapacious person, or a Scottish pet-form of Lawrence; also anglicized from Loewe
Sources 1
- Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Low 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MY Malaysia | #108 | ≈91,000 est. | ≈1 in 357 | — | Low | 150 |
| CN China | — | ≈59,000 est. | ≈1 in 23K | — | Low | 28 |
| SG Singapore | #26 | ≈16,000 est. | ≈1 in 400 | — | Low | 191 |
| US United States | — | 12,032 | 1 in 28K | 12K | Low | 433 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | ≈5,900 est. | ≈1 in 11K | listed | Low | 211 |
| AU Australia | #442 | ≈5,200 est. | ≈1 in 4.9K | — | Low | 192 |
| CA Canada | — | ≈3,700 est. | ≈1 in 10K | — | Low | 195 |
| NZ New Zealand | #594 | ≈740 est. | ≈1 in 6.6K | — | Low | 105 |
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; the hanks-dictionary-surnames-1988 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)
Low 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, from OFr lou 'wolf'; first attested John le Lu 1207 P (Gl)
as a nameA Dictionary of English Surnames
Papen see Pope Patrs.: Ger.: Pankrazer. Russ.: Pankratov, Pankratyev. Papigay see Pobgee Patrs. (from dims.): Ger.: Kretzing, Kratzig. Russ.: Pankrushin, of a priest, but in the North it is more often a nickname meaning Pope, denoting a vain or pompous man. Dim.: It.: Papotto. Pejs.: S It.: Papaccio, Papazzo. Pankeev.
as a nameThe Oxford Names Companion - The definitive guide to Surnames, First Names, and Place Names of the British Isles
thick). The vocab. word feist survives in mod. Ger. mean¬ ing ‘corpulent’, and this lies behind Jewish cogn. Vars.: Feist, Feest, Fehst. Cogn.: Jewish (Ashkenazic): Feist. Dims.: Ger.: Faistle (Swabia); Faistl (Bavaria).
as a nameA dictionary of surnames
thick). The vocab. veord feist survives in mod. Ger. mean¬ ing ‘corpulent’, and this lies behind Jewish cogn. Vars.: Feist, Feest, Fehst. Dims.: Ger.: Faistle (Swabia); FaistI (Bavaria).
as a nameThe Oxford Names Companion - The definitive guide to Surnames, First Names, and Place Names of the British Isles
times the surname has been altered by folk etymological association with mod. Ger. schutzen to protect (see Schutz) and Bier beer.
as a nameA dictionary of 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)
- Emperor Wu of Hanb. 156not in their usual nameseventh emperor of the Han dynasty of China (157 BC–87 BC)
- Liu Shaoqib. 1898CNnot in their usual name2nd President of the People's Republic of China (1898–1969)
- Liu Xiaobob. 1955CNnot in their usual nameChinese literary critic, writer, professor, and human rights activist (1955–2017)
- Gordon Liub. 1955CNnot in their usual nameChinese martial arts film actor (born 1955)
- Andy Laub. 1961CNnot in their usual nameHong Kong actor, film producer, and singer
- Lucy Liub. 1968USnot in their usual nameAmerican actress (born 1968)
- Liu Yangb. 1978CNnot in their usual nameChinese astronaut
- Liu Yifeib. 1987CNnot in their usual nameChinese-American actress and singer (born 1987)
- Simu Liub. 1989CNnot in their usual nameChinese-Canadian actor and author (born 1989)
- Dallas Liub. 2001USnot 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 36 sources across 23 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 12K | #2,892 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 12K | #2,979 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 11K | #2,873 |
| 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
- 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 are other forms of the name Low?
- In the etymology graph, Schall is a form of the same name in other languages.
- What does the name Low mean, and where does it come from?
- person living near a hill, or from nicknames for a short person, a rapacious person, or a Scottish pet-form of Lawrence; also anglicized from Loewe Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
- How do you pronounce Low?
- A machine transcription gives /laʊ/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does Low have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 91 thousand people named Low in Malaysia, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled low.
- How common is the name Low?
- In the United States, the national register counted 12,032 people named Low in 2010, about 1 in 28 thousand residents.
- How common is Low compared with other names?
- In Malaysia, Low is the 108th most common surname of 291,743 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Low?
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/lowThe 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, “Low” — the 108th most common surname in Malaysia. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.