The Levis One-Name study commenced in 2019. The study came about primarily to explore the origins of the surname. The surname has a fairly rare occurrence. Early clusters of the name are seen to occur in Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire and East Anglia in the UK, and regions in North Central France. Individuals with the surname migrated to all corners of the globe, most commonly the United States, Canada, Ireland, Italy and Australia. The rarity of the surname leads to a possibility of one single origin of all Levis lines, however no link between all the lines has been found to date, and it may be that multiple lines have evolved independently from one another. It is hoped that a one-name study will shed some light on these questions. The name was registered with the Guild of One-Name Studies in 2020.

The registered variants of the name are Leavis and Leaviss.

Spelling of the surname has varied over time, both between and within families. Early spellings have included Lévis, Leves, Levys, Levice, Leviss, Leaves, Leeves and, in France, de Lévis. Currently, Levis is the more frequent spelling.

The surname origin is unknown, with several possibilities. These include:

Patronymic, i.e. derived from a personal name. Possible patronymic origins include the Anglo-Saxon name Leofhyse, e.g. a moneyer of Dover, Aethelred II (c.978-1016) and Leofhyse, a burgess of Colchester (Domesday book 1086), Robert son of Levis (Pinchbeck 1336); from Old Danish Leiv and Old Scandinavian Liefr, meaning ‘inheritance’ or ‘legacy’. See Levesthorpe below.

Locative, i.e. derived from one or more place names. In the case of the Levis name, there are several potential sources. These include: in England, Levesthorpe (Levisthorpe 1334; Leuesthorp 1316, Levesthorpe 1428 and now Leesthorpe (in Pickwell) in Leicestershire, a Danish Viking settlement; Levishagh, Norfolk, granted from the capital manor to Halfed de Leveshagh, also called Levis-Hall; Levisham, North Yorkshire. In France potential locative origins include Lévis-Saint-Nom in the Yvelines department in the Île-de-France; and Lèves in the Eure-et-Loir department.

The Levis surname was already prevalent in many regions of England by the middle ages. Some of the earliest known occurrences of the surname Levis and its variants in England include:

• 1209 Thomas de Levis (Kilworth Curia Regis roll 48, Easter, 10 John, 1209, m. 4 d. Leyc). A juror of an assize court. Also 1225 as a witness to a grant for homage and service, Essex
• 1454 Sir David Levys, parish chaplain of Malmesbury, Wiltshire
• 1458 Thomas Levys of Pinchbeck, Lincolnshire
• 1463 Ralph Levys of Tostoke, Suffolk, a husbandman
• 1498 John Levys and his wife Alianora of Somerset
• 1529 Robert Levys of Fulham, Middlesex, a blacksmith
• 1548 John Levys of Welbeck, Nottinghamshire

The earliest known Levis’s in France have been recorded prior to the 12th century.
The earliest known Levis’s in America were the family of Samuel Levis of Harby, Leicestershire, whose ancestors were originally from Beeston, Nottinghamshire.
The earliest known record of a Levis in Cork, Ireland, is the will of Robert Levis jnr, who died in Durrus in 1722.

Some notable Levis’s include:
• Philippe de Lévis (around 1150 - 1203/1204), knight, lord of Lévis-Saint-Nom, first known member of the house of Lévis.
• Samuel Levis (Harby, Leicestershire 1649-1734), a Quaker and early colonist of America settling in Springfield, Pennsylvannia in 1684.
• François-Gaston de Lévis, Duc de Lévis (20 August 1719 – 20 November 1787), styled as the Chevalier de Lévis until 1785, a nobleman and a Marshal of France. The city of Lévis, Quebec, Canada, was named after him.
• Frank Raymond (F.R.) Leavis (Cambridgshire 1895-1978 ), a British literary critic of the early-to-mid-twentieth century.
• Carroll Levis (Toronto, Canada 1910-1968), a talent scout, impresario and television and radio personality.

• Joseph Levis (Boston, Massachussetts 1905-2005), an Olympic foil fencer

The surname occurs today throughout the world. The following lists the global incidence and of the surname (and variant spellings) and prevalence for the most common locations globally (source: Forebears, 2020).

A Family Tree DNA (ftdna) Y dna surname project has been initiated and a link to the results will appear here shortly.

 
The goals of the ftdna Levis surname project include:
• Gaining an understanding of how the different family lines that are known to originate to a 'Levis' family name relate to each other
• Gaining an understanding which of the modern name variations are genetically related to 'Levis' lines, when their known lineage cannot be traced back to a 'Levis' individual
• Helping overcome brick walls on the paternal side of individual member's lineages with the aid of their Y-DNA results