Lemke vs Luke, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“Lemke” is a name and “Luke” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#35,888
“Lemke” frequency rank: #9,945
“Luke” frequency rank: 45833
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	Lemke	Luke
Definition	deutschsprachiger Nachname, Familienname	eine klappbare Tür; eine verschließbare Öffnung

Letter map: Lemke vs Luke

Shared letters muted; letters that set Lemke and Luke apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

5 ch

Lemke

4 ch

Luke

Role in the sentence - Lemke and Luke

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: Lemke is aname and Lukeanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 45833, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Lemke is recorded at frequency rank #35,888, classified as aname, pronounced […]. Luke is at rank #9,945, tagged as anoun, pronounced [ˈluːkə].

Glosses for this pair are partially populated in our dataset, but the full side-by-side definitions above should still guide you to the right choice.

With a confusion score of 45833, this pair ranks #1,339,727 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of Lemke vs Luke

Shared letters: ekl. Private to "Lemke": m. Private to "Luke": u.

"Lemke" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV · "Luke" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

Lemke ← elmke · lekme · lemek · lemkke · lemmke · llemke · lmeke
Luke ← lkue · lluke · luek · lukke · ulke

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "Lemke" for "Luke" ever safe?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Lemke" is a name and "Luke" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

Which is more common, "Lemke" or "Luke"?

"Luke" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #9,945 in our German list, against #35,888 for "Lemke". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "Lemke" and "Luke".

Full dictionary entry for "Lemke" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "Luke" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #1,339,727 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"Lemke" and "Luke" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Lemke vs puzzles". Nearby pair
Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes

Confusion rank #1,339,727 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.