Lou

Where Lou comes from

Shortening.
— Wiktionary's entry for Lou
  • 1 syllable
  • Vowel-ended
Along the way
  1. 1861
    Lou Andreas-Salomem born
    German-Russian essayist, philosopher, and psychoanalyst
  2. 1874
    Lou Henry Hoover born
    First Lady of the United States from 1929 to 1933
  3. 1880
    First SSA year, and the peak
    #122 among girls with 131 babies — the first year on record, and still its best.
  4. 1974
    The fade
    The first year with half the peak's births — down to #1,532.
  5. 2025
    Mostly boys from here
    Until now more girls than boys got the name; from this year it's the other way round, and has stayed that way.
In the dictionary
  • A unisex given name.
  • A diminutive of the male given name Louis.
  • A diminutive of the female given names Louisa and Louise; often also used as a middle name.
Namesakes
  • Lou Andreas-Salomem · German-Russian essayist, philosopher, and psychoanalyst, 1861–1937
  • Lou Henry Hoover · First Lady of the United States from 1929 to 1933, 1874–1944
  • Lou Ferrigno · American actor and bodybuilder, born 1951
  • Lou Gehrig · American baseball player, 1903–1941
  • Lou Diamond Phillips · American actor, born 1962

Sources: the origin note and dictionary entry are quoted from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0); the namesakes come from Wikidata (CC0); the milestones are worked out from the SSA record.