A night of 22 gay Lukes: a name uniting Soho’s most prideful meet-up

What’s in a name? A homosexual by any other name would still be gay. But evidently, some names might just be a little gayer than others. As I’ve recently come to understand, my namesake, Luke, is exceptionally common among the gays.

Since the dawn of time, mankind has been coming together communally to bond over our mutual interests: football, politics and even puppy yoga. In the LGBTQ+ community, our social subcultures can be as niche as appreciating the discography of Kylie Minogue or collectively watching RuPaul’s Drag Race at viewing parties. I’ve personally forged life-long queerships with those who love Buffy the Vampire Slayer as much as I do. But have you ever hung out with a group of gays, solely for the reason that they share the same first name as you? Well, I have.

The “Gay Lukes” gathering

On 26 February 2026, a gaggle of gay men, all legally named Luke, descended upon Soho for a bar crawl. I was one of the 22 Lukes in attendance to witness (and document) such a historical event. Look out – or rather, “Luke out” – for our section at Pride in London‘s 2026 parade. Just kidding, but clearly we are organised enough to make it happen.

You might be curious as to how such a bizarre gathering like this occurred. Well, it all began with a WhatsApp group – aptly named “Gay Lukes”. On 27 September 2024, I was at Knickerbocker party in Hackney Wick where I met another Luke who took a very particular interest in me. Was it the cute Fanta crop-top I had on? Sadly not. This was less-so flirting, more than it was under-the-radar reconnaissance. Little did I know at the time that he was subtly vetting me, to see if I was eligible to join the aforementioned “Gay Lukes” WhatsApp chat.

The rules of the “Gay Lukes” group membership

There are only two rules to gain Gay Luke chat membership. Thankfully this isn’t Fight Club because I’m allowed to talk about this. Rule one: you have to be legally named Luke. Sorry to all the gay Lucases out there. In the words of Gretchen Weiners, “You can’t sit with us.” Form your own WhatsApp chat. And yes, ID is required.

Rule two: you have to identify as queer. I didn’t have my gay-card on me at the time but thankfully the bottle of poppers in my back pocket was all the validation he needed. I soon became the sixteenth Luke indoctrinated into this very exclusive club. Move over, Illuminati.

After my verbal initiation, I was granted admin powers and sanctioned by my new queer Luke-brethren to find and add other gay Lukes to the chat – providing they passed the two holy rules. When you’ve acquired a new Luke, take a selfie with them and introduce them on WhatsApp.

How many “Gay Lukes” is too many?

I soon realised that the goal of this group chat was to get to 50 Gay Lukes. Once that threshold had been crossed, we would organise a meet-up where queer Lukes from across the nation would unite for the inaugural gathering. Fifteen months passed after my enlistment, before we finally found our golden fiftieth Luke on 6 December 2025.

We decided a low-stakes bar crawl in the capital was the easiest way to meet. As most of us were strangers, this option provided an easy escape hatch if the atmosphere was uncomfortable. Fortunately, that wasn’t the case. Twenty-two gay Lukes walk into a bar… sounds like the start of a bad joke. But every Luke that joined came with a disposition of acute self-awareness. We all acknowledged how ridiculous this meet-up was, and it meant any initial awkwardness quickly evaporated with good humour.

It brought back memories of freshers week at university, where the three go-to questions became the default conversation-starter.

Who attends the “Gay Lukes” meet-up?

“What’s your name?” A tad redundant for us in this instance but it helped break the ice. “Where do you come from?” Whilst we have members based in Ireland, Germany and Australia, this meetup took place on a Thursday evening, meaning it was mostly London-based Lukes in attendance. And “What are you studying?” was replaced with “What do you do for a living?” This yielded an eclectic selection of occupations. Many Lukes were in marketing or advertising but we had doctors, nurses, lawyers, a publicist, a chef, a startup founder, a footwear designer, an accountant, a product manager, a furniture salesman, a buyer, a professional dancer and even a drag queen in our midst.

We all wore name tags with “Luke” ironically etched across them in Sharpie. This naturally piqued the curiosity of patrons in the venues we visited, who chuckled in disbelief as we explained the reason for our assemblage.

We even managed to recruit a brand new Luke to the group that very night. He was an American software engineer visiting on business, and thanks to our savvy eye-grabbing advertising, he’s now become our first transatlantic member to spread the Gay Luke Gospel across the pond. Next on our agenda: global domination.

Gay Lukes on tour

Each bar we graced was a nod to our moniker in some way. We kicked things off at Ku Bar on Lisle Street because you can’t spell Luke without ‘K’ and ‘U’. Duh. We then moved on to The Duke of Wellington which we aptly renamed “The Luke of Wellington”!

And finally, we finished things off in The Admiral Duncan on Old Compton Street. I don’t have a witty Luke-pun for this venue, but where better to end such a historic queer event than at one of London’s most historic queer pubs? Plus at this point, most of us were four or five drinks in and were up for some campy drag fun.

What does it mean to be a Luke?

I can’t speak on behalf of all Lukes across the world, but from the twenty-two that I mingled with that evening, I deduced that, collectively, we are a very friendly breed. Perhaps a little too friendly. Many of us were snogging each other by the end of the night, evidencing we Lukes may be slutty narcissists. Hey, I did say we were friendly!

Our name literally translates to “light giver” – so why wouldn’t others (and ourselves apparently) be naturally drawn to us? It also provides some explanation on why so many Lukes are gay. Our namesake indicates we are simply massive flamers attracting the attention of the queer moths.

But if you can overlook my personal bias, what I ascertained was we are generally quite outgoing, kind, adventurous and clearly up for a laugh. We bonded over silly little things that only people named Luke will understand – such as the constant Star Wars references. Growing up, we were all subjected to being nicknamed “Skywalker”. Or people would constantly say “No Luke, I am your father” to us, thinking they were funny. As a film journalist and vlogger by trade, you can imagine the annoyance of having one of the greatest movies of all time constantly misquoted to you on a weekly basis. For the record, the line is “I am your father”.

The origins of the “Gay Lukes” movement

I also uncovered the origins of our little found family. The group never would’ve established itself if five gay Lukes hadn’t met in the kitchen at a house party in Dalston.

“This seemed like a statistical anomaly,” says Luke B, a creative advertiser and one of the founding five members of the group chat. He says, “What are the chances that five gay men all named Luke just happened to wind up at the same random house party? It wasn’t lost on us that the odds were astronomical. We all got on really well. So we made the WhatsApp chat. And then someone added another gay Luke, and then another. We kept it going and look at us now. I cannot believe how far this has come. What started off as essentially a bit of a joke, to actually being here now.”

I asked everybody that I interviewed what other male names (besides Luke) they consider to be popular among gay men. Ironically, biblical names were frequently mentioned. What would Luke be without Matthew, Mark and John alongside him for a cheeky Gin and Tonic and a chinwag? Luke R said “Justin. I don’t even need to think about it. I’ve never met a straight Justin. Find me a straight Justin, you can not”.

How do I join the Gay Lukes meet-up?

Other names that the group deemed to be common among gay men included; Jack, David, Daniel, James, Ben, Connor, Theo, Alex, Adam, Craig, Nick and Ryan. Luke A, a doctor from London told me, “I’ve suggested those groups of names that they start their own group chats and they’ve laughed at me. But maybe now after people see the success of this event, we might become the trailblazers for other gay-name group chats and meetups.”

What started off as a seemingly novelty idea turned into a joyful social experiment. New friendships were forged, laughs were had and, in some cases, saliva was exchanged. But the feedback in the group chat the following day was overwhelmingly positive. Since the first ever big gay Luke meet-up, our little clique has expanded to 70 members and is certain to keep growing. Our next social is being planned for the 15 May in London. If you’re a gay Luke out there reading this and your curiosity is tickled, feel free to reach out via socials. We are recruiting. We want you. And that includes you: Luke Evans. We could use a celebrity ambassador on the committee. Come join our big gay Luke cult. But bring ID.