Lois

The name traces to ancient Greek, where Lōís is commonly linked to lōíōn, meaning 'better' or 'more desirable.' It entered English written records by the late sixteenth century and reached Massachusetts settlements before 1700. American parents favored it in rural counties throughout the nineteenth century before moving it into wide national circulation in the early twentieth century.

The name reads as rooted in nineteen-fifties civic life, associated with someone who keeps a vinyl address book and a ballpoint pen that never skips. With an estimated average age of seventy-five, a Lois today sits between the early baby boom and the Silent Generation. Half of all living bearers belong to the post-war generation, while another thirty-eight percent arrived earlier. A Lois tends to be pictured near a back door, waiting for someone to shut it before the air conditioning escapes.