Lourdes
A feminine name of French origin referring to a Christian Catholic site of pilgrimage.
Name Census estimates that about 12,953 living Americans carry the first name Lourdes. It is a predominantly female name (99.5% of registrations). The average person named Lourdes today is around 42 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Lourdes births was 1963 (333 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Lourdes. 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 Lourdes with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Although Lourdes is used almost entirely for girls, the SSA data does show 69 boys registered with the name since 1880.
People living today
13K
~ 1 in 26,461 Americans
Peak year
1963
333 babies that year
Average age
42
years old
1990 SSA rank
#2,754
Tracked since 1916
Census
Lourdes in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 46,440 people with the first name Lourdes, which placed it at #950 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
#950
National first-name rank
People counted
46K
46,440 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
15.4
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
Hispanic or Latino
83.7% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Lourdes
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Lourdes is Hispanic at 83.7%. The next largest groups are Asian/Pacific Islander (12.3%) and White (2.2%). 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 Lourdes 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 Lourdes at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- Hispanic or Latino83.7% · 38,889
- Asian and Pacific Islander12.3% · 5,730
- White2.2% · 1,023
- Black or African American1.2% · 547
- Two or more races0.4% · 202
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.1% · 49
Gender
Gender distribution for Lourdes
Out of the 14,813 babies given the name Lourdes since 1880, 99.5% were registered as female. The name sits firmly on the female side of the spectrum, with only a handful of male registrations across the entire dataset.
Lourdes as a male name
- Ranked #7,727 in 1990
- 6 male births in 1990
- Peak: 1986 (8 births)
Lourdes as a female name
- Ranked #2,754 in 2024
- 62 female births in 2024
- Peak: 1963 (333 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Lourdes appears almost entirely female. Of the 46,439 people counted with this name, 99.7% were female and only a very small share were male.
Popularity
Lourdes: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Lourdes from the 1910s through to the 2020s, spanning 12 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1960s, with 3,077 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1960s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Lourdes 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 Lourdes during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Lourdes' live
The SSA's state-level files cover 23 states and territories. California, New York, Texas recorded the most babies named Lourdes, while Iowa, Maryland, Indiana recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 531 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Lourdes
The name Lourdes finds its origins in the Pyrenees region of southwestern France. It is derived from the Occitan words "lor" meaning "this" and "de" meaning "the," referring to the grotto at the town of Lourdes where the Virgin Mary is said to have appeared to a young girl named Bernadette Soubirous in 1858.
The Marian apparitions at Lourdes have made the town a significant place of pilgrimage for Catholics worldwide. The name Lourdes became popular after these events, as a way to honor the Virgin Mary and the miracles attributed to the location.
While the name Lourdes does not appear in ancient texts or religious scriptures, it has been closely associated with the Catholic faith and the veneration of the Virgin Mary since the 19th century.
One of the earliest recorded examples of the name Lourdes is Saint Bernadette Soubirous herself (1844-1879), the young French girl who witnessed the Marian apparitions at the grotto in Lourdes.
Another notable figure with the name Lourdes is Lourdes Torres (1920-2008), a Cuban-American actress and dancer who appeared in several Hollywood films and television shows throughout her career.
Lourdes Diaz (1958-1992) was a Cuban-American serial killer who was convicted of murdering several elderly women in Miami, Florida, in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Lourdes Montes (born 1970) is a Mexican-American entrepreneur and the founder of the successful tequila brand, Casa Dragones.
Lourdes Portillo (born 1944) is a Mexican-American filmmaker and academic, known for her pioneering work in Chicana/o and Latino/a cinema, including the documentary films "Las Madres de la Plaza de Mayo" and "Señorita Extraviada."
People
Lourdes + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Lourdes 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
Lourdes: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Lourdes?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 12,953 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Lourdes 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 26,461 US residents.
Is Lourdes a common name?
We classify Lourdes as "Uncommon". It ranks above 98% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 14,813 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Lourdes most popular?
The single biggest year for Lourdes was 1963, when 333 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Lourdes is about 42 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Lourdes in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 46,440 people with the name Lourdes, or 15.38 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #950 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 Lourdes 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 Lourdes?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Lourdes appears almost entirely female. Of the 46,439 people counted with this name, 99.7% were female and only a very small share were male. 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 Lourdes?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Lourdes is Hispanic at 83.7%. The next largest groups are Asian/Pacific Islander (12.3%) and White (2.2%). 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 Lourdes most often in the Census?
Hispanic is the largest reported group for people named Lourdes in the 2020 Census, accounting for 83.7% (38,889 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 Lourdes in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Lourdes a female name?
Yes, 99.5% of people registered as Lourdes in the SSA data are female. 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 Lourdes still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Lourdes 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 Lourdes 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 Lourdes?
For a quick modern estimate, our sister site HowManyOfMe.org answers that in one glance, with the living-bearer count front and centre.