Lula - Name Meaning and Popularity -

Meaning of Lula

The two-syllable appellation Lula—rendered phonetically as LOO-luh in English and LOO-lah in Spanish or Italian—emerged in the late nineteenth-century Anglo-American naming repertoire as a contracted form of Louise and, in some instances, Lucy, thereby inheriting from the Old High German *Hludwig* the meaning “renowned in battle” and from the Latin *lux* the symbolism of “light.” Gaining early legitimacy as an independent forename, particularly in the American South where affectionate diminutives often achieved legal standing, it climbed into the national top 300 by the mid-twentieth century, subsequently declined, and now occupies a modest renaissance near rank 850, mirroring the contemporary revival of vintage names. Cultural resonance is sustained by blues and folk lyrics (“My Lula Gal”), by Truman Capote’s character Lula Mae Barnes in *Breakfast at Tiffany’s*, and, indirectly, by the global visibility of Brazilian statesman Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva, which collectively attest to the name’s cross-linguistic adaptability. Concise in form yet layered in lineage, Lula offers parents a historically grounded alternative to more elaborated feminines.