Lïñ

surname · Latin script

Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published

Lïñ is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country. In Singapore it is the 59th most common surname. Recorded meaning: From Middle English linnen, from Old English linnan (“to cease from, desist, lose, yield up”), from Proto-Germanic *linnaną (“to turn, move aside, avoid”), from Proto-Indo-European *ley- (“to elude, a.

rarermore common
  • CNChina≈1 in 249(inferred from the name graph)
  • HKHong Kong≈1 in 376
  • SGSingapore≈1 in 663

carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.

China (inferred from the name graph)

≈5,600,000 people, est.

2 (measured from records)

recorded for this name

Sources
516 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

≈1 in 249 (inferred from the name graph)

China, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Spellings & scripts(measured from records)

LïñLatin(measured from records)
ЛінCyrillic(measured from records)

3 other spellings are counted as the same name:

Locally spelled Lin in US United States, AU Australia, MY Malaysia and 4 more.

Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.

Meaning & origin(measured from records)

Derivation of Lïñ: each step is the form the one above it came from.
Lïñ
  1. Middle Englishlinnen(measured from records)
  2. Old Englishlinnan“to cease from“to cease from, desist, lose, yield up”(measured from records)
  3. Proto-Germanic*linnaną“to turn“to turn, move aside, avoid”(measured from records)
  4. Proto-Indo-European*ley-“to elude“to elude, avoid, shrink from”(measured from records)

From Middle English linnen, from Old English linnan (“to cease from, desist, lose, yield up”), from Proto-Germanic *linnaną (“to turn, move aside, avoid”), from Proto-Indo-European *ley- (“to elude, avoid, shrink from”). Cognate with Danish linne (“to stop, rest”), dialectal Swedish linna (“to pause, rest”), Icelandic linna (“to stop, rest”).

Sources 8

  • A concise dictionary of first names
  • Dictionary of American Family Names
  • The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
  • Wiktionary
  • Förnamn i Sverige. Kortfattat namnlexikon

Attested across 28 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Lïñ counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.

Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.

Where Lïñ is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
CN China#654≈5,600,000 est.≈1 in 249—Lin157
US United States#45679,5081 in 4.2K164KLin516
MY Malaysia#127≈29,000 est.≈1 in 1.1K—Lin107
HK Hong Kong#99≈19,000 est.≈1 in 376—Lin122
ES Spain—14,1511 in 3.5K14KLin75
AU Australia#122≈14,000 est.≈1 in 1.8K104Lin262
SG Singapore#59≈9,400 est.≈1 in 663—Lin158

Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.

Registers cited: Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; NSW BDM — Popular baby names (1952–present); INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos); INE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal). Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.

Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).

Other names spelled this way(inferred from the name graph)

Lïñ is also recorded as 2 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • a separate surname16 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, China, United Kingdom, Hong Kong

    Also written Lin, Liñ, Lín, Liǹ, Lịn

  • Malay surname8 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, China

    Languages: Malay, Indonesian

    Also written Lin, Lín, Liñ, Ĺïñ, Ļíñ

3 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Evidence(measured from records)

No register attests this spelling yet

None of the official registers or reference works in our corpus lists Lïñ under this spelling. The statistics on this page rest on person records, and the related names are inferred from the name graph.

Frequently asked questions

What does the name Lïñ mean, and where does it come from?
From Middle English linnen, from Old English linnan (“to cease from, desist, lose, yield up”), from Proto-Germanic *linnaną (“to turn, move aside, avoid”), from Proto-Indo-European *ley- (“to elude, a… Recorded by A concise dictionary of first names and Dictionary of American Family Names and 6 other sources.
In which country does Lïñ have the most bearers?
Mondonomo estimates about 5.6 million people named Lïñ in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled lin.
How common is the name Lïñ?
In the United States, the national register counted 79,508 people named Lïñ in 2010, about 1 in 4.2 thousand residents.
How common is Lïñ compared with other names?
In China, Lïñ is the 654th most common surname of 142,871 surnames recorded there.

What do you want to know about Lïñ?

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Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/l%C3%AF%C3%B1

The payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.

About this data

measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated

These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.

Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.

Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.

Cite this page Mondonomo, “Lïñ” — the 654th most common surname in China. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Lïñ parses inside a full name →