Luke
Most Poles have never met a Luke, but the name is slowly climbing: a few boys get it each year, more than in years past. It's Greek at root, tied to Lucania in southern Italy.
Luke Pronunciation
Luke is pronounced LOO-ke (/ˈlukɛ/).
What Luke means
Where Luke comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
Luke reaches back to the Greek Loukas, a short form of a name that meant a man from Lucania, a region in the south of Italy. The best known early bearer is Luke the Evangelist, the physician to whom the third Gospel is credited. Polish reshaped the name into Łukasz, and that is what a teacher now reads down a class register.
The Polish sense of światłość, of one who brings light, came to the name later. The ear pulled it toward Latin lux, and the reading stuck. The Greek root says only where a man was from, never what he shone with.
So the name holds two stories at once. One is geography, a place on a map below Naples. The other is light, borrowed and kept. A boy called Łukasz carries the older meaning without knowing it: from Lucania.
How many people are named Luke
1 in 65479 men in Poland is named Luke. 326 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #1673 among male names.
Luke's popularity over time
5 boys were given the name in 2025, ranking #938 among newborns. It has been falling steadily since 2000.
Where Luke is most popular
Luke is most popular in Świętokrzyskie, 1199% above the national average (2 boys born 2019–2025), followed by Kuyavian-Pomeranian (+559%) and Masovian (+103%).
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Świętokrzyskie2 boys born+1199%
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Kuyavian-Pomeranian2 boys born+559%
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Masovian2 boys born+103%
Luke as a middle name
Luke is a first name for 326 men in Poland and a middle name for another 183, a 64/36 split. In the men's middle-name ranking it sits 502nd, between Antoine (184) and Witalis (183).
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#500 Alfredo185
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#501 Antoine184
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#502 Luke183
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#503 Witalis183
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#504 Eustachy182