English
The surname Lugg is of English origin. The surname is the Middle English form of the given name Luke; Lucas being the learned form of this name. Lucas is the Latin form of the post-classical Greek name 'Loukas', 'man from Lucania'. Lucania was a region of Southern Italy that was perhaps originally named in an Italic dialect with a word meaning 'bright', 'shining'. This owes its perennial popularity throughout Christian Europe to the fact that, from the second century onwards, the third gospel in the New Testament has been ascribed to the Lucas or Luke mentioned in various places in Acts and in the Epistles. He was a doctor, a Gentile, and a friend and convert of St.Paul. The Latin form Lucas was often used in the Middle Ages in written documents in place of the spoken vernacular form Luke, hence the common surname. It is also the spelling that is prefferred in the Authorized Version of the New Testament, which has had some influence on its selection as a given name. Lucas is now also used as an anglicization of various forms of Eastern European equivalents. It is the usual Dutch form of Luke. The name dates back to the eleventh century were a Euerard Lucas is recorded in historical archives. The name was brought to America predominately by English immigrants. One of the first fore fathers to bring this name to America is that of a John Lucas, a cordwainer by trade, who emigrated to America aboard the Nancy; he settled in Maryland. This name is the two-hundredth and fifty-first most common surname in America.