Lin
surname · Latin script
Meaning: probably from ahd. lin 'flax' or an
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/laɪn/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Lin 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.
- 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)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 516 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 249 (inferred from the name graph)
≈5,600,000 people, est.
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
China, 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)
probably from ahd. lin 'flax' or an. linr 'gentle'
Sources 1
- Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung
Attested across 5 languages in the etymology graph.
Often considered alongside
Names that people choosing a name often weigh against Lin, most often first. They share a style rather than an origin.
From the names suggested together in public name-advice forums, in English. A list of what people consider, not a measure of how common any name is.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Lin 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 | #654 | ≈5,600,000 est. | ≈1 in 249 | — | Lin | 157 |
| US United States | #456 | 79,508 | 1 in 4.2K | 164K | Lin | 516 |
| MY Malaysia | #127 | ≈29,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.1K | — | Lin | 107 |
| HK Hong Kong | #99 | ≈19,000 est. | ≈1 in 376 | — | Lin | 122 |
| ES Spain | — | 14,151 | 1 in 3.5K | 14K | Lin | 75 |
| AU Australia | #122 | ≈14,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.8K | 104 | Lin | 262 |
| SG Singapore | #59 | ≈9,400 est. | ≈1 in 663 | — | Lin | 158 |
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 recorded senses(measured from records)
Lin 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, Orthographic variation im Auslaut: ss vs. ß nach Konsonant; 42+359 Belege.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 2: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen II, Konsonantismus
3. Scottish and English: perhaps a variant of Lynn.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
variant of Lynn and possibly also of Flynn .
as a nameThe Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
In English, To desist, to stop to cease.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Swedish, Lin kan vara en skrivform av det arabiska → Leen eller ett kinesiskt namn som betyder ’jade’. Det kan också vara en stavningsvariant av → Linn.
as a nameFörnamn i Sverige. Kortfattat namnlexikon
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. 1907CNChinese 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
- Maya Linb. 1959USAmerican sculptor and architect (born 1959)
- Justin Linb. 1971USTaiwanian film director
- Dan Linb. 1973TWTaiwanese-American film producer (born 1973)
- Shu Qib. 1976TWnot in their usual nameTaiwanese actress (born 1976)
- Lin Danb. 1983CNChinese badminton player
- Jeremy Linb. 1988USTaiwanese-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 98 sources across 46 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 117K | #259 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 80K | #402 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 49K | #624 |
| ES Spain | INE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal) | — | 14K | #388 |
| ES Spain | INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos) | — | 14K | #388 |
Reference works 9
- 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
- Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- 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
- jeantosti.com — Dictionnaire des noms de famille de France et d'ailleurs (Jean Tosti)
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
- Where does the name Lin come from?
- probably from ahd. lin 'flax' or an. linr 'gentle' Recorded by Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung.
- What does the name Lin mean?
- Recorded meaning: probably from ahd. lin 'flax' or an.
- In which country does Lin have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 5.6 million people named Lin in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled lin.
- How do you pronounce Lin?
- A machine transcription gives /laɪn/ (IPA) for English.
- How common is the name Lin?
- In the United States, the national register counted 79,508 people named Lin in 2010, about 1 in 4.2 thousand residents.
- How common is Lin compared with other names?
- In China, Lin is the 654th most common surname of 142,871 surnames recorded there.
- What are other forms of the name Lin?
- In the etymology graph, Lim is a form of the same name in other languages.
What do you want to know about Lin?
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/linThe 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, “Lin” — the 654th most common surname in China. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.