Geneanet > Resources > Family Names > LEWIS

Origin and popularity of the name LEWIS

Origin

Lewis : 1: English: from the Middle English Old French personal name Lewis Leweis Lowis from ancient Germanic (originally West Frankish) Hludwig (itself from hlōd- ‘fame famous’ + wīg- ‘battle’). This was Latinized as Ludovicus and Chlodovisus which were gallicized as Clovis or Clouis French Louis. The name may also appear as Lawis Laweys Lawes by unrounding of the vowel of Lowis on the analogy of the variation between Low and Law as pet forms of Middle English Lourence alias Laurence. This surname is also very common among African Americans. See Laws 2 and compare Lawrence.2: Welsh: adopted for the Welsh personal name Llywelyn (see Llewellyn).3: Irish: shortened Anglicized form of Gaelic Mac Lughaidh ‘son of Lughaidh’. This is one of the most common Old Irish personal names. It is derived from Lugh ‘brightness’ which was the name of a Celtic god.4: Americanized form of French Louis.5: Americanized form of various like-sounding Jewish surnames.6: Chinese: variant Romanization of the surnames 廖 (see Liao) 羅 (see Luo 1) 劉 (see Liu 1).

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Source : DAFN2 : Dictionary of American Family Names 2nd edition, ©2022 by Patrick Hanks and Oxford University Press
FANBI : The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain, ©2021, University of the West of England

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Last name frequency

Geographic distribution of the 371,881 individuals with the name LEWIS on Geneanet.

 

Most found places for the name LEWIS:

    This last name in the family trees

    See below the Geneanet members' family trees which contain the last name LEWIS

    wells0
    (2,564 individuals)
    wbuchanan
    (2,523 individuals)
    larsx4
    (1,953 individuals)
    alapearle
    (1,647 individuals)

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