Lucious
A masculine name of Etruscan origin meaning "light" or "shining".
Name Census estimates that about 2,311 living Americans carry the first name Lucious. The name is used almost exclusively for boys. The average person named Lucious today is around 50 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Lucious births was 1926 (76 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Lucious. 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 Lucious with official rankings and popularity over time.
People living today
2.3K
~ 1 in 148,314 Americans
Peak year
1926
76 babies that year
Average age
50
years old
2024 SSA rank
#4,138
Tracked since 1880
Census
Lucious in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 1,679 people with the first name Lucious, which placed it at #8,605 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
#8,605
National first-name rank
People counted
1.7K
1,679 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.6
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
Black or African American
70.0% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Lucious
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Lucious is Black at 70.0%. The next largest groups are White (18.0%) and Hispanic (6.8%). 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 Lucious 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 Lucious at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- Black or African American70.0% · 1,175
- White18.0% · 303
- Hispanic or Latino6.8% · 114
- Two or more races3.9% · 65
- American Indian and Alaska Native1.0% · 16
- Asian and Pacific Islander0.4% · 6
Gender
Gender distribution for Lucious
Out of the 4,810 babies given the name Lucious since 1880, 99.9% 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.
Lucious as a male name
- Ranked #4,138 in 2024
- 26 male births in 2024
- Peak: 1926 (76 births)
Lucious as a female name
- Ranked #4,682 in 1915
- 5 female births in 1915
- Peak: 1915 (5 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Lucious leans strongly male. 1,656 people counted with this name were male (99.0%), compared with 17 female bearers (1.0%).
Popularity
Lucious: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Lucious 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 643 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
Lucious 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 Lucious during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Lucious' live
The SSA's state-level files cover 14 states and territories. Georgia, Mississippi, Florida recorded the most babies named Lucious, while Tennessee, New York, Michigan recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 150 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Lucious
The name Lucious originated from the Latin name Lucius, which derives from the Latin word "lux" meaning "light." It was a common Roman praenomen or personal name during the Roman Empire.
The name Lucius first appeared in ancient Roman historical records and texts, such as the writings of Cicero and Livy. It was a popular name among Roman aristocratic families, and several famous Romans bore the name, including Lucius Annaeus Seneca, the Stoic philosopher (c. 4 BC - 65 AD), and Lucius Cornelius Sulla, the Roman dictator (c. 138 BC - 78 BC).
In the early Christian era, the name Lucius was borne by several saints and early Church leaders, including St. Lucius, the third-century Pope and martyr, and St. Lucius of Cyrene, one of the founders of the Church of Antioch.
As the Roman Empire spread across Europe, the name Lucius and its variants, such as Lucious, were adopted by various cultures and languages. One notable historical figure with the variant spelling Lucious was Lucious Cary, the 2nd Viscount Falkland (1610-1643), an English politician and writer who played a significant role in the English Civil War.
Other historical figures with the name Lucious include:
1. Lucious Desha (1766-1842), an American lawyer and politician who served as a judge and as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives.
2. Lucious Hollis (1828-1904), an American farmer and politician who served as a member of the Alabama House of Representatives and as a delegate to the Alabama Constitutional Convention.
3. Lucious Newsom (1853-1930), an American educator and author who served as the president of the Alabama State Normal School (now Alabama State University).
4. Lucious Walker (1829-1892), an American lawyer and politician who served as the Governor of Virginia from 1869 to 1874.
5. Lucious Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar II (1825-1893), an American jurist and politician who served as a U.S. Senator from Mississippi and as the U.S. Secretary of the Interior under President Grover Cleveland.
People
Lucious + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Lucious 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
Lucious: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Lucious?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 2,311 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Lucious 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 148,314 US residents.
Is Lucious a common name?
We classify Lucious as "Rare". It ranks above 94.3% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 4,810 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Lucious most popular?
The single biggest year for Lucious was 1926, when 76 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Lucious is about 50 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Lucious in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 1,679 people with the name Lucious, or 0.56 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #8,605 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 Lucious 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 Lucious?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Lucious leans strongly male. 1,656 people counted with this name were male (99.0%), compared with 17 female bearers (1.0%). 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 Lucious?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Lucious is Black at 70.0%. The next largest groups are White (18.0%) and Hispanic (6.8%). 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 Lucious most often in the Census?
Black is the largest reported group for people named Lucious in the 2020 Census, accounting for 70.0% (1,175 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 Lucious in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Lucious a male name?
Yes, 99.9% of people registered as Lucious 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 Lucious still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Lucious 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 Lucious 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 Lucious?
For a quick modern estimate, our sister site HowManyOfMe.org answers that in one glance, with the living-bearer count front and centre.