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Ludger

Boys' name

Men, people + spear

Ludger has been given to 179 babies in the U.S. since 1912. It was used fewer than 5 times in 2025, so it doesn't appear in the latest year's list — today it's a genuinely uncommon pick. Its peak year was 1926, with 14 recorded.

Babies named Ludger, 1950

1 in 500,000

Ludger over time, 1880–2025

Boys
05101518801900192019401960198020002020

Based on births in the U.S. Babies given the name each year. Hover the chart — or focus it and use the arrow keys — for any year. Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Ludger: meaning, origin, and history

Men, people + spear

Deeper origin not confirmed in the cited records

What Ludger means

Ludger means “men, people + spear”, associated with liudi and gaiʀ.

Origin, language, and formation

Ludger is used in German.

Ludger comes through Old Saxon Liudigēr, Proto-West Germanic *liudi and Latin Ludgerus.

Pronunciation and spelling

In German, Ludger is pronounced /ˈlʊt.ɡɛɐ̯/.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 179 boys were recorded with the name Ludger between 1912 and 1950. Its highest annual count was 14 in 1926; its best national rank was #1,831 in 1912.

Sources & methodologyReferences, data & attribution

Meaning, origin, and language notes draw on the references below.

American popularity figures use published Social Security Administration records for this exact spelling. Counts below five for a name, sex, and year are omitted.

Wiktionary material is available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

How common is Ludger?

Ludger had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 1950, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 1950
1 in 500,000
7 of 3,502,380 births
Among boys only
1 in 256,000
<0.01% of boys
Rank, 1950
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
346,810 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Ludger sits on the popularity scale

Rarest published (5 a year)#1 — Liam (20,818)

Chance at least one other child shares the name

If the other children were drawn at random from the 1950 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.

Class of 20Under 1%
Class of 30Under 1%
Grade of 100Under 1%
School of 500Under 1%

Put another way: gather 346,810 children born in 1950 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Ludger. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Ludgers were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Ludger was born before 1922 — so the typical Ludger is around 103 today.

Median birth year
1922
About 103 years old
Biggest decade
1920s
50.3% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
34.1%
Spread across generations
Recorded since 1950
7
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1920s — 50.3% of all recorded uses (90).

Is Ludger rising or falling?

Rank movement and count movement can disagree — the number of distinct names in use keeps growing, so a name holding a steady count still slides down the list. Both are shown.

Rank vs 1 year ago
—
Not ranked then
Rank vs 5 years ago
New entry
Not ranked then
Rank vs 10 years ago
—
Not ranked then
Births vs 10 years ago
—
Not published both years
Share of its own peak
0%
Peak was 1926 (14)
Years since peak
99
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Volatile
34.3% average annual change
Best rank ever
#1,831
1912

Spellings of Ludger

Ludger is not the most common spelling — Luther is, with 66.3% against Ludger's 0.18%.

Grouped by closeness of spelling (up to two letter changes), same sex, with a floor on all-time use. It catches Sophia/Sofia and Aiden/Ayden, and misses spellings that sound alike but look different, like Sean and Shawn.

Where Ludger is used

Across 1910–2025, Ludger was most concentrated in Maine — about 1 in 33,333 boys, against 1 in 139,235 across all states with data. It was least common in Massachusetts (1 in —).

03 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1Maine1 in 33,333
  2. 2Massachusetts1 in —

Shading is the share of that state's recorded boys given this name, not the raw count — otherwise the map would just show which states are biggest. Unshaded states have no published records for this period. U.S. birth records suppress state-year counts below 5; state counts therefore don't add up to the national total. Every state links to its full rankings. Ludger has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Ludger around the world

Where Ludger ranks in official birth records elsewhere in the world. Rankings only — the number of births isn’t comparable between places, so it isn’t shown.

  • France
    1901–1999
    #3,977
    in 1999
  • Canada
    2013–2013
    #2,319
    in 2013

Popularity data from Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques and Statistics Canada. INSEE data under Licence Ouverte / Etalab 2.0. StatCan data under Statistics Canada Open Licence.

Ludger by the numbers

The raw record for each sex the name is used for.

As a boy's name

Rank in 2025
Unranked
Trend vs 5 yrs ago
—
Best rank ever
#1,831
1912
Peak year
1926
14 that year
First recorded
1912
Last recorded
1950
All-time count
179
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Ludger

Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.

LudwinDodgerSeagerRutgerDangerSegerRidgerTriggerLudieDaggerLudwigJaegerHolgerLudovicoGraingerTygerJagerLudovicLudwikLuddieRangerLudlowTragerTraeger

Sibling names for Ludger

Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.

Explore around Ludger

Top names of 1926, Ludger's peak yearThe 1920s in fullOther names that peaked in 1912Boys' names starting with L