Ludmila
A Slavic name meaning "favour of the people". Only about 1,100 women in Poland carry it and no girls have been given it in years, so meeting one now would stick in your memory.
Ludmila Pronunciation
Ludmila is pronounced lood-MEE-lah (/ludˈmila/).
What Ludmila means
Where Ludmila comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
Ludmila grows from Slavic roots, joining lud, the people, to a second part meaning dear or favoured. The short sense given to it is favour of the people, and in Polish miła ludziom, dear to the people. In Poland the name also appears as ludmiła, with the softened ł that the language prefers.
One bearer fixed the name early. Ludmila of Bohemia, born around 860, was a duchess and later a saint, and she raised her grandson Wenceslas, the Wenceslas of the Christmas carol. She was killed in 921. Because of her, the name traveled across Slavic lands with a Christian weight set beside its older meaning.
A short line. The meaning stayed legible.
On a class register in a Polish school, Ludmila sits among names whose sense has clouded over, while hers still reads plainly: someone the people hold dear. That is what the two parts say when you pull them apart, lud and miła.
How many people are named Ludmila
1 in 20645 women in Poland is named Ludmila. 1,094 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #920 among female names.
Ludmila as a middle name
Ludmila is a first name for 1,094 women in Poland and a middle name for another 28, a 98/2 split. In the women's middle-name ranking it sits 1348th, between Loreta (28) and Luzie (28).
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1346
28Ivonne
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1347
28Loreta
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134828Ludmila
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1349
28Luzie
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1350
28Marine