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First: Luebke is an anglicized version of Lubke. In German the "u" would have an umlaut [ " ]above it, which would cause the "u" to be pronounced something like a short "i" in English. Hence, some other anglicized versions of the name are spelled Libke, Lipke, Libka, or Lipka. Second: the "ke" at the end is a typical North German shortening of "chen", which is the diminutive, as in "Madchen". [In southern Germany the diminutive "lein" is used, as in "Fraulein". Hence, German surnames from southern Germany sometimes end in shortened versions of "le" or "li".] Third: In northern Germany, about 25 miles east of the city of Osnabruck, is the town of Luebbecke. It may well be the source of our name. Our family emigrated from the hamlet of Achmer, located a few miles northwest of Osnabruck, in 1835.
There is another etymology of this surname, which I think better explains its ubiquity in northern Germany. In the Middle Ages, males with a personal name containing the element "Leut" or "Luit" (as in "Luitpand" or the modern "Leopold") often bore the nickname "Lubbo." The element means "Of the people," as in the modern German term "Leute." Add a Low German diminutive, and you get "Lübboke," which eventually gets truncated to "Lübke." As a diminutive on a nickname referring to "the people," I tell people that translates roughly as "Little Homey"