Lam
surname · Latin script
Meaning, in English: To beat or thrash
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/læm/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Lam is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country. In Hong Kong it is the 33rd most common surname.
- HKHong Kong≈1 in 48(inferred from the name graph)
- MYMalaysia≈1 in 1.2K
- SGSingapore≈1 in 1.2K
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Where a country counts another spelling of the name rather than Lam itself, the figure is that spelling’s, and it is named. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- China (inferred from the name graph)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 519 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 48 (inferred from the name graph)
≈590,000 people, est.
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Hong Kong, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
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)
nickname for a gentle person, from Old Norse lamb ‘lamb’, or possibly for a lame man. Old Norse lami.
Sources 1
- Dictionary of American Family Names
Attested across 4 languages in the etymology graph.
How Lam is read(measured from records)
Lam is one spelling over 3 language communities, and the dictionaries record it differently in 2 of them. Each row is what a source recorded for that language, beside the share of this name’s records the language holds. No single row is the name’s meaning.
- English52%
To beat or thrash.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- Vietnamese23%
blue
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- Chinese6.0%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Lam in Chinese.
The share is ours — how much of this name’s records each language holds. The sense beside it is the source’s, quoted and credited, including where it names a gender. We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Lam 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.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CN China | — | ≈590,000 est. | ≈1 in 2.4K | — | Lam | 83 |
| HK Hong Kong | #33 | ≈150,000 est. | ≈1 in 48 | — | Lam | 163 |
| US United States | #629 | 55,554 | 1 in 6K | 60K | Lam | 519 |
| EC Ecuador | — | 45,808as Lema | 1 in 369 | 46K | — | 21 |
| MY Malaysia | #226 | ≈28,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.2K | 2.5K | Lam | 121 |
| SG Singapore | #80 | ≈5,100 est. | ≈1 in 1.2K | — | Lam | 154 |
| UY Uruguay | — | 3,706as Lema | 1 in 914 | 3.7K | — | — |
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 — Surname Frequency 2020; INEC — civil registry names; data.gov.my — Name Popularity Dashboard (JPN, by decade and ethnicity); INE Uruguay — Apellidos más frecuentes 1902–2024 (Tableau Public). 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 recorded senses(measured from records)
Lam is also recorded in 4 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
nickname for a gentle person, from Old Norse lamb ‘lamb’, or possibly for a lame man. Old Norse lami.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
In German, from LAND
as a nameDeutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung
In Danish, 2. nickname for a lame man (from ON lami).
as a nameA dictionary of surnames
In Danish, name for a lame man (from ON lami).
as a nameThe Oxford Names Companion - The definitive guide to Surnames, First Names, and Place Names of the British Isles
Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Thích Quảng Đứcb. 1897VNnot in their usual nameVietnamese monk who self-immolated in 1963
- Lin Biaob. 1907CNnot in their usual nameChinese Communist military commander and politician
- Lam Ching-yingb. 1952CNHong Kong actor and choreographer (1952–1997)
- Carrie Lamb. 1957GBformer Chief Executive of Hong Kong
- Justin Linb. 1971USnot in their usual nameTaiwanian film director
- Dan Linb. 1973TWnot in their usual nameTaiwanese-American film producer (born 1973)
- Shu Qib. 1976TWnot in their usual nameTaiwanese actress (born 1976)
- Lin Danb. 1983CNnot in their usual nameChinese badminton player
- Jeremy Linb. 1988USnot in their usual nameTaiwanese-American basketball player
- Awkwafinab. 1988USnot in their usual nameAmerican actress, comedian, and rapper
The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).
How to address them(machine-generated)
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 75 sources across 38 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 4.2K | #3,669 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 1.4K | #3,669 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 5 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2021 | 5 | — |
Reference works 8
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Rymut, Słownik nazwisk współcześnie w Polsce używanych (10 vols, IJP PAN, Kraków 1992–1994) — every Polish surname in the PESEL register at the end of 1990, with bearer counts nationally and per voivodeship1990
- Søndergaard, Georg, Danske efternavne (Lademann 1984/1991)
- Ethiopian name tokens (GitHub lehagere/ethiopian-names, 40/60 condominium list)
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- What does the name Lam mean?
- In English, To beat or thrash.
- Where does the name Lam come from?
- nickname for a gentle person, from Old Norse lamb ‘lamb’, or possibly for a lame man. Old Norse lami. Recorded by Dictionary of American Family Names.
- How do you pronounce Lam?
- A machine transcription gives /læm/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does Lam have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 590 thousand people named Lam in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled lam.
- How common is the name Lam?
- In the United States, the national register counted 55,554 people named Lam in 2010, about 1 in 6.0 thousand residents.
- How common is Lam compared with other names?
- In Hong Kong, Lam is the 33rd most common surname of 8,142 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Lam?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/lamThe 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, “Lam” — the 33rd most common surname in Hong Kong. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.