Ling
given name · Latin script
Meaning: person from Lyng, Norfolk, or Chinese ‘ice’
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/lɪŋ/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Ling is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country. In Hong Kong it is the 5th most common given name.
- HKHong Kong≈1 in 510(inferred from the name graph)
- TWTaiwan≈1 in 1.3K
- MYMalaysia≈1 in 1.7K
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 Ling 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)
- 3 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 477 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 510 (inferred from the name graph)
≈1,100,000 named Lu, est.
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Hong Kong, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Locally spelled Lu in CN China, TW Taiwan, Flora in US United States and Flóra in HU Hungary.
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)
person from Lyng, Norfolk, or Chinese ‘ice’
Sources 1
- Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Attested across 6 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Ling 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 | — | ≈1,100,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.3K | — | Lu | 206 |
| US United States | #683 | 26,834as Flora | 1 in 12K | 47K | Flora | 477 |
| MY Malaysia | #25 | ≈19,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.7K | — | Ling | 135 |
| TW Taiwan | #652 | ≈19,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.3K | — | Lu | 174 |
| ID Indonesia | — | ≈16,000 est. | ≈1 in 17K | listed | Ling | 129 |
| HK Hong Kong | #5 | ≈14,000 est. | ≈1 in 510 | — | Ling | 104 |
| HU Hungary | #580 | 12,393as Flóra | 1 in 788 | 12K | Flóra | 53 |
| AL Albania | — | 3,522as Flora | 1 in 873 | 3.5K | — | 1 |
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 — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; Nyilvántartó — Top-100 given names in population (2020–2025); INSTAT Albania — Search the name (given-name counts). 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)
Ling is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In German, from ahd. galingan 'to succeed'; also linked to lind- forms
as a nameDeutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung
In German, variant of -ing, often diminutive or patronymic
as a nameDeutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung
habitational name from Lyng in Norfolk, so named from Old English Mine ‘hillside’, or from either of two places in Norfolk and Lincolnshire named Ling, from Old Norse lyng ‘ling’, ‘heather’. There is also a Lyng in Somerset, so named from Old English lengen ‘long place’.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
9, 3 ‘understanding’ and ‘compassion’. 2 9 ‘Tinkle’, in particular the tinkling sound of pieces of jade hanging in the wind. For the significance of jade in Chinese culture, see also yu.
as a nameA concise dictionary of first names
In English, Norfolk, which Ekwall suggests may be derived from OE Mine hillside. Vars.: Li(e)pmann. Patr.: Lipmanovicz (E Ashkenazic).
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)
- Zhu Lingb. 170CN3rd century Chinese Cao Wei state general
- Ma Linb. 1180CNnot in their usual nameChinese artist (1180-1256)
- Ruan Lingyub. 1910CNnot in their usual nameChinese silent film actress
- Zhang Lingb. 1957CNChinese writer
- Peter Kee Lin Ngb. 1960SGnot in their usual nameSingaporean freshwater field biologist
- Low Yen Lingb. 1974SGMember of the Parliament of Singapore
- Gao Lingb. 1979CNChinese badminton player
- Jia Lingb. 1982CNChinese comedian, actress and director
- Li Lingb. 1985CNChinese athletics competitor (1985-)
- Chen Lingb. 1987CNChinese archer (born 1987)
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 63 sources across 32 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 6.1K | #3,114 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 981 | #3,114 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2024 | 7 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1991 | 7 | — |
Reference works 6
- 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
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 Ling mean, and where does it come from?
- person from Lyng, Norfolk, or Chinese ‘ice’ Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
- Is Ling a male or female name?
- Ling is a female name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
- How do you pronounce Ling?
- A machine transcription gives /lɪŋ/ (IPA) for English.
- What are other forms of the name Ling?
- In the etymology graph, Linh is a form of the same name in other languages.
- In which country does Ling have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 1.1 million people named Lu in China, more than in any other country we hold.
- How common is the name Ling?
- In the United States, the national register counted 26,834 people named Flora in 2020, about 1 in 12 thousand residents.
- How common is Ling compared with other names?
- In Hong Kong, Ling is the 5th most common given name of 23,276 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Ling?
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/lingThe 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, “Ling” — the 5th most common given name in Hong Kong. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.