Luca

1. A male given name from Italian, borrowed in the 2000s.
2. A female given name.

   Miss Lori, my girlfriend is on the phone. Her name is Luca.

   2014 June 16, Luciana Craita, “Black Alpha”, in Luca the Werewolf Daughter, [Bloomington, Ind.]: Xlibris, →ISBN, page 74

   4 more examples

   This is my bedroom, and Luca’s, and Fran’s, and my mother’s. The four of us sleep here, and at the back of the house live Celesta and Rose, my other two sisters who I don’t really know. […] We are Celesta, Rosaria, Francesca, Luca, Dolores.

   2000, Trezza Azzopardi, “Waiting”, in The Hiding Place, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Atlantic Monthly Press, published 2001, →ISBN, page 4

   “No, it wasn’t a dream, Luke….You have a daughter. […] I just assumed she was Ryan’s. I got married days after you came to Chicago….days after you and me… I’m sorry….” / “What’s her name, Drea?” […] “Luca….your daughter’s name is Luca.” / “No, no… her name is Luca Landon.” […] Luca Landon would always connect Mattdrea Cyrus to Luke Landon.

   2014 November 19, D.L. London, “Book of Luke”, in Under the Blood, Bloomigton, Ind.: AuthorHouse, →ISBN, page 646

   Who is the playwright of the Diamond Theater responsible for these stirring stories? Her name is Luca Syara, but beyond that, she’s an enigma.

   2019 November, Jeremy Crawford, James Wyatt, Keith Baker, “Northedge”, in Eberron: Rising from the Last War (Dungeons & Dragons), Renton, Wash.: Wizards of the Coast, →ISBN, chapter 3 (Sharn, City of Towers), page 171, column 1

   I don’t know if you ever met my stepmother, Luca. […] When Luca’s husband died protecting my dad, he’d felt obligated to show his loyalty and gratitude by marrying her, adopting her sons, treating them as his own.

   2024, Angela Addams, “Levi”, in Fury (Hell Hath No Fury; 2), [Lincoln, Lincolnshire]: Totally Bound Publishing, →ISBN

plural Lucas

1. Alternative letter-case form of LUCA.

   What’s more, every living organism is ultimately descended from a single ancestral population: the Last Universal Common Ancestor (Luca), which lived over 3.5 billion years ago when the planet was newly formed.

   2020 November 11, Michael Marshall, “Charles Darwin’s hunch about early life was probably right”, in BBC, retrieved 11 Nov 2020

plural LUCAs · alternative Luca · alternative L.U.C.A. · alternative L. U. C. A.

1. abbreviationinitialismbiologyInitialism of last universal common ancestor; the hypothesised most recent primordial organism that is an ancestor to all organisms now living.

   Luca is now usually placed deep underground, in a fissure in hot igneous rocks, where she fed on sulphur, iron, hydrogen and carbon.

   1999, Matt Ridley, Genome, Harper Perennial, published 2000, page 19

   1 more example

   It was around 2.9 billion years ago that LUCA split into the three domains of life: the single-celled bacteria and archaea, and the more complex eukaryotes that gave rise to animals and plants[…].

   2011 November 26, Michael Marshall, “Our ancestor, the mega-organism”, in New Scientist, page 8

   Synonyms: LUA