Lucille

French variation of Latin Lucilla
"light"

Lucille Origin and Meaning

The name Lucille is a girl's name of French origin meaning "light".

Lucille is a name that had long been overpowered by its link to Lucille Ball, with an image of tangerine-colored hair, big, round eyes, and a tendency to stage daffy and desperate stunts. But with the newfound craze for double-L names like Lily and Lila, Lulu and Luna, and as the choice of Lucille by hipster parents Maya Rudolph and Paul Thomas Anderson, Lucille is breaking free from its old clownish image, moving rapidly up the charts over the past decade after a long nap.

Lucille has a history that far predates Lucille Ball and the 1950s. It was well used by Christians of the Roman Empire and began to be used in the U.K. and the U.S. in the nineteenth century, making it one of the most classic names for girls. Reaching as high as Number 27 on the popular names list of 1919—when there was a vogue for French sounding names like Marguerite and Genevieve—Lucille stayed in the Top 40 from 1906 to 1924. This was followed by an almost thirty-year slump starting in 1977, when it fell off the list completely, only to return in 2003.

# 285 in the US

Lucille Rank in US Top 1000

# 418 on Nameberry

Lucille Rank in Nameberry Top 1000

Lucille Popularity

Famous People Named Lucille

  • Lucille Désirée Ball
    American actress and comedienne
  • Lucille Fay LeSueur
    birth name of Joan Crawford, American actress
  • Lucille Theresa Bliss
    American actress
  • Lucille Elsa Roybal
    Allard, U.S. Congresswoman from California
  • Lucille Frances "Lucy" Lawless
    New Zealand actress
  • Karen Lucille "Lucy" Hale
    American actress
  • Lucille Mulhall
    American cowgirl and Wild West performer
  • Lucille Lortel
    American actress
  • Lucille Maree Hamilton
    Australian basketball player
  • Lucille Loretta Wall
    American actress
  • Lucille Opitz
    German speed skater
  • Lucille Clifton
    American poet
  • (Violet) Lucille Fletcher
    American screenwriter
  • Lucille Soong
    American actress
  • Lucille Marie Raymonde (Savoie) Starr
    Canadian singer
  • Lucille Ricksen (born Ingeborg Myrtle Elisabeth Ericksen)
    American actress
  • Lucille Anderson (b. 2009)
    daughter of actress Maya Rudolph and director Paul Thomas Anderson
  • Mary "Lucille" Diana Hanson (b. 2016)
    daughter of American pop rock singer Zac Hanson
  • Lucille Ruby Odom (b. 2017)
    daughter of actor Leslie Odom Jr. and Nicolette Robinson

Lucille in Pop Culture

  • Lucille Bluth and Lustille Austero
    characters on TV's "Arrested Development"
  • Lucille "Lucy" van Pelt
    character in the Peanuts series
  • Lucille Hewitt
    character on British soap "Coronation Street"
  • Lucille March Weeks
    character on American soap "General Hospital"
  • Lucille the Rubber Freak
    character in Lily Tomlin's sketches
  • Lucille
    character in movie "Kingdom Come"
  • Lucille
    character in the Junie B. Jones series by Barbara Park
  • Lucille
    Negan's bat on 'The Walking Dead'
  • Lucille
    Little Richard song (1957)
  • Lucille
    Kenny Rogers song (1977)
  • Lucille
    name of B.B. King's guitars
  • Lucille
    B.B. King song (1985)
  • Lucille Sharpe
    character in movie "Crimson Peak"