Lucia
A feminine name of Latin origin meaning "light" or "lucid".
Name Census estimates that about 47,921 living Americans carry the first name Lucia. It sits at #98 in the overall ranking, outside the top 50 but still well-represented. The name is used almost exclusively for girls. The average person named Lucia today is around 23 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Lucia births was 2024 (2,658 babies). In terms of living bearers, it sits close to Julius (47,774).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Lucia. 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 Lucia with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Although Lucia is used almost entirely for girls, the SSA data does show 91 boys registered with the name since 1880.
People living today
48K
~ 1 in 7,152 Americans
Peak year
2024
2,658 babies that year
Average age
23
years old
2004 SSA rank
#98
Tracked since 1880
Census
Lucia in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 71,626 people with the first name Lucia, which placed it at #716 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
#716
National first-name rank
People counted
72K
71,626 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
23.7
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
Hispanic or Latino
66.3% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Lucia
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Lucia is Hispanic at 66.3%. The next largest groups are White (26.8%) and Asian/Pacific Islander (3.6%). 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 Lucia 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 Lucia at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- Hispanic or Latino66.3% · 47,453
- White26.8% · 19,192
- Asian and Pacific Islander3.6% · 2,568
- Black or African American1.7% · 1,210
- Two or more races1.5% · 1,054
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.2% · 149
Gender
Gender distribution for Lucia
Out of the 56,400 babies given the name Lucia since 1880, 99.8% 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.
Lucia as a male name
- Ranked #10,821 in 2004
- 6 male births in 2004
- Peak: 1989 (10 births)
Lucia as a female name
- Ranked #98 in 2024
- 2,658 female births in 2024
- Peak: 2024 (2,658 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Lucia appears almost entirely female. Of the 71,628 people counted with this name, 99.7% were female and only a very small share were male.
Popularity
Lucia: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Lucia from the 1880s through to the 2020s, spanning 15 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2010s, with 14,701 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 2010s peak, Lucia remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Lucia 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 Lucia during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Lucias live
The SSA's state-level files cover 50 states and territories. California, Texas, New York recorded the most babies named Lucia, while Mississippi, Vermont, North Dakota recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 1,005 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Lucia
The name Lucia has its origins in the Latin language, deriving from the ancient Roman name Lucius, which means "light" or "lucid." The name's roots can be traced back to the Latin word "lux," meaning light or radiance. It was a popular name during the Roman era and was later adopted by various cultures and languages.
In Christianity, the name Lucia holds significant meaning and is associated with Saint Lucia, a 4th-century martyr from Syracuse, Sicily. According to legend, Saint Lucia was a young Christian who was blinded for her faith but miraculously had her sight restored. She is often depicted in art carrying a dish with her eyes on a plate, symbolizing her martyrdom and the gift of sight.
One of the earliest recorded instances of the name Lucia can be found in the 6th century, when a woman named Lucia of Trent was venerated as a saint in the Catholic Church. She was believed to have been born in the 3rd century and died around 286 AD.
Throughout history, several notable figures have borne the name Lucia. In the 13th century, Lucia dei Settesoldi, also known as Blessed Lucia of Narni, was an Italian religious leader and founder of the Order of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Vallecorsa. She lived from around 1180 to 1246.
Another famous Lucia was the Italian composer Lucia Quarra, who lived from 1619 to 1668. She was a renowned musician and one of the first female composers of the Baroque era.
In the literary world, Lucia Moholy, a Hungarian-American photographer and writer, made significant contributions to the Bauhaus movement. She was born in 1894 and died in 1989.
Lucia Whalen, an American actress and singer, gained recognition for her roles on Broadway and in films during the early 20th century. She was born in 1889 and died in 1969.
Lastly, Lucia Bartolozzi, an Italian painter and engraver, was a notable figure in the art world during the 18th century. She was born in 1737 and died in 1818.
These are just a few examples of the many notable individuals throughout history who have borne the name Lucia, a name that has endured across cultures and centuries, symbolizing light, clarity, and radiance.
People
Lucia + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Lucia 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
Lucia: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Lucia?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 47,921 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Lucia 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 7,152 US residents.
Is Lucia a common name?
We classify Lucia as "Uncommon". It ranks above 99.1% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 56,400 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Lucia most popular?
The single biggest year for Lucia was 2024, when 2,658 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Lucia is about 23 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Lucia in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 71,626 people with the name Lucia, or 23.71 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #716 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 Lucia 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 Lucia?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Lucia appears almost entirely female. Of the 71,628 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 Lucia?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Lucia is Hispanic at 66.3%. The next largest groups are White (26.8%) and Asian/Pacific Islander (3.6%). 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 Lucia most often in the Census?
Hispanic is the largest reported group for people named Lucia in the 2020 Census, accounting for 66.3% (47,453 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 Lucia in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Lucia a female name?
Yes, 99.8% of people registered as Lucia 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 Lucia still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Lucia 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 Lucia 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 Lucia as a first name?
For a quick modern estimate, our sister site HowManyOfMe.org answers that in one glance, with the living-bearer count front and centre.