Lewis
A masculine given name of French origin meaning "renowned warrior".
Name Census estimates that about 68,216 living Americans carry the first name Lewis. It sits at #433 in the overall ranking, outside the top 50 but still well-represented. It is a predominantly male name (99.4% of registrations). The average person named Lewis today is around 57 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Lewis births was 1921 (2,731 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Lewis. 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 Lewis with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Although Lewis is used almost entirely for boys, the SSA data does show 870 girls registered with the name since 1880.
People living today
68K
~ 1 in 5,025 Americans
Peak year
1921
2,731 babies that year
Average age
57
years old
2024 SSA rank
#433
Tracked since 1880
Census
Lewis in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 63,423 people with the first name Lewis, which placed it at #780 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
#780
National first-name rank
People counted
63K
63,423 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
21.0
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
70.3% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Lewis
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Lewis is White at 70.3%. The next largest groups are Black (18.4%) and Hispanic (5.8%). 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 Lewis 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 Lewis at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White70.3% · 44,575
- Black or African American18.4% · 11,699
- Hispanic or Latino5.8% · 3,684
- Two or more races3.0% · 1,908
- Asian and Pacific Islander1.4% · 917
- American Indian and Alaska Native1.0% · 640
Gender
Gender distribution for Lewis
Out of the 155,889 babies given the name Lewis since 1880, 99.4% 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.
Lewis as a male name
- Ranked #433 in 2024
- 728 male births in 2024
- Peak: 1921 (2,712 births)
Lewis as a female name
- Ranked #15,262 in 2004
- 6 female births in 2004
- Peak: 1917 (23 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Lewis appears almost entirely male. Of the 63,422 people counted with this name, 99.5% were male and only a very small share were female.
Popularity
Lewis: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Lewis from the 1880s through to the 2020s, spanning 15 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1920s, with 25,491 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1920s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Lewis 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 Lewis during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Lewis' live
The SSA's state-level files cover 51 states and territories. New York, Pennsylvania, Texas recorded the most babies named Lewis, while Hawaii, Nevada, Alaska recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 2,739 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Lewis
The given name Lewis has its origins in the Germanic language family, derived from the old Frankish words "leuthi" (people) and "wig" (war), forming the combined meaning of "renowned warrior" or "famed fighter among the people". It gained prominence during the Early Middle Ages in Western Europe, particularly in regions with Frankish cultural influences.
The name Lewis can be traced back to the 8th century, when it was recorded as a personal name among the Franks and other Germanic tribes. One of the earliest known bearers of the name was Louis the Pious (778-840), the son of Charlemagne and King of the Franks from 814 to 840 CE. He played a significant role in the spread and adoption of the name throughout Europe.
Lewis appears in various forms throughout medieval texts and historical records. In the 11th century, the name was documented as "Lodewig" in Old High German, and as "Lodovic" in Old French. It also appeared in Latin texts as "Ludovicus" and in Old English as "Hlodwig" or "Hloduwig".
Some notable historical figures with the name Lewis include Louis IX (1214-1270), also known as Saint Louis, who was the King of France from 1226 until his death. He led the Seventh and Eighth Crusades and is remembered for his piety and efforts to reform the French monarchy. Lewis Carroll (1832-1898), the English author best known for his works "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking-Glass", is another famous bearer of the name.
Other notable Lewis figures include Lewis Latimer (1848-1928), an African American inventor and draftsman who worked with Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Edison; Lewis Hine (1874-1940), an American sociologist and photographer who documented the lives of child laborers and immigrants; and Lewis Terman (1877-1956), an American psychologist who developed the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale and pioneered research on gifted children.
The enduring popularity of the name Lewis can be attributed to its rich historical significance, as well as its association with notable figures throughout various eras and fields, from royalty and religion to literature and science.
Notable bearers
Famous people named Lewis
People
Lewis + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Lewis 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
Lewis: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Lewis?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 68,216 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Lewis 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 5,025 US residents.
Is Lewis a common name?
We classify Lewis as "Uncommon". It ranks above 99.3% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 155,889 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Lewis most popular?
The single biggest year for Lewis was 1921, when 2,731 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Lewis is about 57 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Lewis in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 63,423 people with the name Lewis, or 21.00 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #780 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 Lewis 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 Lewis?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Lewis appears almost entirely male. Of the 63,422 people counted with this name, 99.5% were male and only a very small share were female. 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 Lewis?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Lewis is White at 70.3%. The next largest groups are Black (18.4%) and Hispanic (5.8%). 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 Lewis most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Lewis in the 2020 Census, accounting for 70.3% (44,575 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 Lewis in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Lewis a male name?
Yes, 99.4% of people registered as Lewis 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 Lewis still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Lewis 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 Lewis 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 many people have the name Lewis?
For a quick modern estimate, our sister site HowManyOfMe.org answers that in one glance, with the living-bearer count front and centre.