Lim
surname · Latin script
Meaning: a Chinese Indonesian surname from Hokkien
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/ʎɪm/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Lim is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Malaysia than in any other country, where it is the 13th most common surname.
- MYMalaysia≈1 in 90(inferred from the name graph)
- SGSingapore≈1 in 97
- PHPhilippines≈1 in 977
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.
- Malaysia (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 498 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 90 (inferred from the name graph)
≈360,000 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Malaysia, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
a Chinese Indonesian surname from Hokkien.
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested across 4 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Lim 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MY Malaysia | #13 | ≈360,000 est. | ≈1 in 90 | 2.5K | Lim | 211 |
| CN China | — | ≈170,000 est. | ≈1 in 8K | — | Lim | 66 |
| PH Philippines | #52 | ≈110,000 est. | ≈1 in 977 | — | Lim | 194 |
| SG Singapore | #2 | ≈64,000 est. | ≈1 in 97 | — | Lim | 236 |
| US United States | #848 | 37,021 | 1 in 9K | 40K | Lim | 498 |
| AU Australia | #98 | ≈15,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.6K | — | Lim | 251 |
| HK Hong Kong | #205 | ≈4,900 est. | ≈1 in 1.5K | — | Lim | 90 |
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; data.gov.my — Name Popularity Dashboard (JPN, by decade and ethnicity). 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)
Lim 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 enm, alternative form of lym (“quicklime”)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Vietnamese, kind of fine timber native to Vietnam (Erythrophleum fordii)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Galician, first-person singular preterite indicative of ler
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In kxa, five (as a bound element in the numerals 6-9)
as a wordAustronesian Comparative Dictionary (ACD), CLDF v2.0
In ang, limb, bodily member; branch (of tree etc)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
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)
- Lin Biaob. 1907CNnot in their usual nameChinese Communist military commander and politician
- Lam Ching-yingb. 1952CNnot in their usual nameHong Kong actor and choreographer (1952–1997)
- Carrie Lamb. 1957GBnot in their usual nameformer 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
- Dami Imb. 1988AUnot in their usual nameAustralian singer
- Jeremy Linb. 1988USnot in their usual nameTaiwanese-American basketball player
- Lim Na-youngb. 1995KRSouth Korean singer
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 56 sources across 30 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 40K | #839 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 37K | #936 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 27K | #1,170 |
Reference works 5
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- 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 Lim mean, and where does it come from?
- a Chinese Indonesian surname from Hokkien. Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- What are other forms of the name Lim?
- In the etymology graph, Lin is a form of the same name in other languages.
- How do you pronounce Lim?
- A machine transcription gives /ʎɪm/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does Lim have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 362 thousand people named Lim in Malaysia, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled lim.
- How common is the name Lim?
- In the United States, the national register counted 37,021 people named Lim in 2010, about 1 in 9.0 thousand residents.
- How common is Lim compared with other names?
- In Malaysia, Lim is the 13th most common surname of 291,743 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Lim?
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/limThe 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, “Lim” — the 13th most common surname in Malaysia. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.