What is the origin of the name Lucas?

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Why: Aunt Michele told Andrew that "Luke isn't a good name for Jewish people." I guess I always thought Lucas was Biblical, like the Jewish Bible-cal.

Answer: Hmm, I was wrong. Lucas is a variant of Luke, not the other way around. It comes from Greek Latin origin meaning "man from Lucania" - a region of southern Italy thought to have been named in ancient times with a word meaning "bright and shining" (like lucid, Lucius, Lucy, etc.).

The Christian name owed its enormous popularity throughout Europe in the Middle Ages to St. Luke the Evangelist, hence the development of this surname and many vernacular derivatives in most of the languages of Europe.

Source: BlurtIt, Ancestry.com

The More You Know: It's Lucy's birthday. Happy birthday, Lucy!