Lew
A short diminutive of names like Louis or Lewis; derived from German meaning "renowned warrior".
Name Census estimates that about 966 living Americans carry the first name Lew. It is a predominantly male name (99.3% of registrations). The average person named Lew today is around 67 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Lew births was 1957 (59 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Lew. Below you will find a gender breakdown showing how the name splits between male and female registrations, a year-by-year popularity chart stretching back to 1880, decade-level totals, the top US states for this name, its meaning and etymology, and a set of frequently asked questions with data-backed answers.
For a British comparison, Name Census UK has a UK baby-name profile for Lew with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • The typical person named Lew is about 67 years old today, placing it firmly among the names of earlier generations. Most living Lews were born before 1969.
People living today
966
~ 1 in 354,818 Americans
Peak year
1957
59 babies that year
Average age
67
years old
2023 SSA rank
#6,625
Tracked since 1880
Census
Lew in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 1,396 people with the first name Lew, which placed it at #9,802 in the published first-name tables. This is a snapshot of people who already had the name at the time of the Census.
The SSA sections elsewhere on this page answer a different question: how often parents gave the name to babies over time. The "people living today" figure on this page is different again: it is a current estimate built from SSA birth records and age-based survival rates, so the two numbers are not expected to match exactly.
2020 Census rank
#9,802
National first-name rank
People counted
1.4K
1,396 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.5
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
79.9% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Lew
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Lew is White at 79.9%. The next largest groups are Black (6.7%) and Asian/Pacific Islander (6.4%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself.
The bar chart below shows how people with the first name Lew described their own race and ethnicity on the 2020 Census form. The Census Bureau groups responses into six broad categories: White, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, Asian and Pacific Islander, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Two or More Races. When a category has too few respondents for a given name, the Bureau suppresses the figure to protect individual privacy, which is why some names show fewer than six slices.
Percentages are shown so the breakdown is easy to read across every published category. Because the 2020 Census first-name file also includes raw headcounts for each group, Name Census can show those alongside the percentages in the legend and hover tooltip.
Keep in mind that these are self-reported numbers. A first name does not determine a person's race or ethnicity, and the distribution you see here reflects the specific population who happened to carry the name Lew at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White79.9% · 1,116
- Black or African American6.7% · 93
- Asian and Pacific Islander6.4% · 90
- Hispanic or Latino3.0% · 42
- American Indian and Alaska Native2.1% · 29
- Two or more races1.9% · 26
Gender
Gender distribution for Lew
Out of the 2,203 babies given the name Lew since 1880, 99.3% were registered as male. The name sits firmly on the male side of the spectrum, with only a handful of female registrations across the entire dataset.
Lew as a male name
- Ranked #7,127 in 2023
- 12 male births in 2023
- Peak: 1959 (55 births)
Lew as a female name
- Ranked #6,625 in 1957
- 5 female births in 1957
- Peak: 1929 (5 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Lew leans strongly male. 1,320 people counted with this name were male (94.2%), compared with 81 female bearers (5.8%).
Popularity
Lew: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Lew from the 1880s through to the 2020s, spanning 14 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1950s, with 404 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1950s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Lew by decade
The table below breaks the full SSA timeline into ten-year windows. Each row shows how many male and female babies were given the name Lew during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Lews live
The SSA's state-level files cover 7 states and territories. New York, California, Illinois recorded the most babies named Lew, while Wisconsin, Texas, Ohio recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 16 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Lew
The given name Lew is derived from the Old German name Hludwig, which is composed of the elements "hlud" meaning "loud, famous" and "wig" meaning "war, battle". This name was later adopted into Old French as "Loois" and then into English as Lewis, with the shorter form Lew emerging as a diminutive.
The name Lew has its roots in the Germanic tribes of central Europe, and it gained prominence during the Middle Ages. One of the earliest recorded instances of the name was in the 8th century, when it was borne by the Frankish ruler Louis the Pious, who reigned as the King of the Franks from 814 to 840 AD.
In the Christian tradition, the name Lew is associated with several saints and religious figures. Saint Louis IX, the King of France from 1226 to 1270, was a notable bearer of the name and is revered as a patron saint of the country. Another notable figure was Louis de Montfort, a French priest and missionary who lived from 1673 to 1716 and is known for his devotion to the Virgin Mary.
Throughout history, the name Lew has been carried by numerous notable individuals. One of the most famous was Lew Wallace, an American author, soldier, and politician who lived from 1827 to 1905 and is best known for writing the novel Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ. Another prominent bearer of the name was Lew Hoad, an Australian tennis player who was born in 1934 and won multiple Grand Slam titles in the 1950s.
In the world of sports, Lew Burdette, an American baseball player who lived from 1926 to 2007, was a notable figure. He was a pitcher for the Milwaukee Braves and won the World Series MVP award in 1957. Lew Alcindor, later known as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, was a basketball player born in 1947 who is considered one of the greatest players in the history of the sport.
Lew Ayres, an American actor who lived from 1908 to 1996, was also a notable bearer of the name. He starred in numerous films during the Golden Age of Hollywood, including the iconic anti-war film All Quiet on the Western Front in 1930.
Notable bearers
Famous people named Lew
People
Lew + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Lew as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with L
Other first names starting with L with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Lew: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Lew?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 966 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Lew going back to 1880 and adjusting each cohort for expected survival using CDC actuarial life tables. The result is an age-weighted living-bearer count, not a raw birth total. That works out to about 1 in 354,818 US residents.
Is Lew a common name?
We classify Lew as "Very Rare". It ranks above 89.9% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 2,203 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Lew most popular?
The single biggest year for Lew was 1957, when 59 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Lew is about 67 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Lew in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 1,396 people with the name Lew, or 0.46 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #9,802 in the national Census ranking for first names.
Why is the Census count different from the living estimate?
Because they measure different things. The Census figure is a count of people who had the name Lew in 2020. The living estimate aims to answer a current question instead: how many people with the name are alive today, based on SSA birth records and age-based survival rates. Since one number is a 2020 snapshot and the other is a present-day estimate, they are not expected to be identical.
What does the Census say about the gender split for Lew?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Lew leans strongly male. 1,320 people counted with this name were male (94.2%), compared with 81 female bearers (5.8%). The Census view is a snapshot of people living with the name in 2020, while the SSA section above tracks births across time.
What does the Census say about the background of people named Lew?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Lew is White at 79.9%. The next largest groups are Black (6.7%) and Asian/Pacific Islander (6.4%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself. The percentages in the chart above come from self-reported race and Hispanic-origin responses in the 2020 Census.
Which group reports the name Lew most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Lew in the 2020 Census, accounting for 79.9% (1,116 people in the published table).
Why can the Census sex total and race total differ slightly?
The Census Bureau published separate 2020 tables for sex and for race/Hispanic origin, and the released figures can differ slightly because of privacy protection in the public files. That is why this page treats the gender section and the race/origin section as two related snapshots instead of forcing them into one identical total.
Does every first name have Census demographic data?
No. The public Census first-name release only includes names that met the Bureau's publication rules, so many rarer names in the SSA files have no Census demographic snapshot. When that happens, the SSA trend, gender history, and state sections still appear, but the 2020 Census demographic sections are omitted.
What does the SSA popularity chart show?
The chart tracks births, not the number of people alive with the name today. Each point shows how many babies were given the name Lew in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Lew a male name?
Yes, 99.3% of people registered as Lew in the SSA data are male. You can see the full per-sex comparison in the gender distribution section above, which includes the latest year rank, birth count, and peak year for each sex.
Is Lew still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Lew in 2024, and the page above shows its latest-year rank where available. A name can be well past its peak and still remain in steady use, especially if it built up a large population over earlier decades.
Why can a name have a lot of living bearers even if it is not trendy now?
Because living-bearer counts and current baby-name popularity measure different things. A name like Lew can build up a very large population over many decades, even if fewer parents are choosing it now than they did at its peak.
Where does this data come from?
First-name figures come from the Social Security Administration's national baby name files, which cover every name on a birth certificate from 1880 to 2024. Living-bearer estimates layer in CDC actuarial life tables broken out by sex to account for mortality. The population baseline (342,754,338) is the Census Bureau's latest national estimate. You can read the full calculation on our methodology page.
How common is the name Lew?
For a quick modern estimate, our sister site HowManyOfMe.org answers that in one glance, with the living-bearer count front and centre.