Lora
A surname that likely comes from the female given name Laura/Lora, used as a family name from a personal name tradition.
The #5,001 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 43,918 Americans shares it.
Etymology
This surname is generally understood as coming from the medieval female name Lora, Laura, or Laurencia, rather than from a place or occupation. Those names ultimately go back to Latin *laurus*, meaning “laurel,” the tree associated with honor and victory. In surname use, it may have begun as a descriptive reference to a woman or as a metronymic formed from a mother’s or ancestress’s given name.
History
The historical excerpts show Lora appearing in medieval English records both as a personal name and in byname-like contexts, which fits a surname arising from an inherited given name. Nineteenth-century surname writers also connect it with the wider Romance-name tradition, especially Provençal and French forms linked to Laura. Because the form is short and cross-linguistic, it may have arisen independently in more than one region.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Petrarch’s devotion to Laura helped make related names fashionable across medieval Europe, which may have indirectly influenced surname forms like Lora.
From the historical record
“Antcliff, and TopliCrfor Topcliffe. Johaime* de GimeleF ct Lora uor eJM. tfitar, 1579 : P. T. York« j). ij Ekin Unnele( cs. Soou., i Edv. Ill : Ktft»j'B Qorit, p. 97J.”
— A Dictionary of English and Welsh Surnames, with special American instancesNotable people named Lora
- Jhilmar Lora (b. 2000)
Sourced from Wikidata; linked to their Wikipedia page.