Lindsay
given name · Latin script
Meaning: person from Lindsay in Lincolnshire or Suffolk, or anglicized Irish Gaelic surnames
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/lɪndzi/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Lindsay is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country.
- CACanada≈1 in 2.4K(inferred from the name graph)
- BEBelgium≈1 in 2.7K
- AUAustralia≈1 in 2.8K
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 Lindsay 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.
- United States (measured from records)
- #708 (measured from records)
- 3 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 557 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 2.4K (inferred from the name graph)
147,985 named Lindsey, 2020
of 15M given names
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Canada, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
One other spelling is counted as the same name:
Locally spelled Lindsey in US United States.
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 Lindsay in Lincolnshire or Suffolk, or anglicized Irish Gaelic surnames
Sources 1
- Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Attested across 2 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Lindsay 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | #288 | 147,985as Lindsey | 1 in 2.2K | 144K | Lindsey | 557 |
| CN China | — | ≈140,000 est. | ≈1 in 10K | — | Lindsay | 52 |
| GB United Kingdom | #278 | ≈22,000 est. | ≈1 in 3K | 8 | Lindsay | 284 |
| CA Canada | #267 | ≈16,000 est. | ≈1 in 2.4K | 5 | Lindsay | 270 |
| AU Australia | #345 | ≈9,000 est. | ≈1 in 2.8K | 73 | Lindsay | 245 |
| BE Belgium | #411 | ≈4,400 est. | ≈1 in 2.7K | 28 | Lindsay | 109 |
| NZ New Zealand | #278 | ≈1,700 est. | ≈1 in 2.9K | 13 | Lindsay | 138 |
| BR Brazil | — | 1,110 | 1 in 191K | 1.1K | — | 6 |
147,985 people counted by Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex, 2020. 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; NISRA — Baby names Northern Ireland full list (1997–present); Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender; NSW BDM — Popular baby names (1952–present); Familienaam.be — Belgian family-name frequency (population register); DIA — Baby name popularity (1900–present); IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror). 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)
Lindsay 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 English, Scottish surname used as a first name; originally an Old English place name meaning ‘Lincoln’s wetland’.
as a nameIrish first names
In English, Locational surname from Lindsey in Lincolnshire; progenitor came north via England. Sir Walter de Lindeseya recorded by 1124.
as a nameScottish Surnames
In French, Scottish surname used as a given name, from a place name of uncertain origin.
as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
In English, from Lindsey, Lincolnshire; first attested Thomas de Lindesie 1207 FFL
as a nameA Dictionary of English Surnames
habitational name from Lindsey in Lincolnshire, England. This is first found in the form Lindissi, apparently a derivative of the British name of Lincoln. To this was later added the Old English element eg ‘island’, since the place was virtually cut offby the surrounding fenland. The surname was taken to Scotland at an early date and is the name of an important and powerful Scottish family.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
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)
- Lindsay Andersonb. 1923GBBritish feature-film, theatre and documentary director and film critic (1923-1994)
- Lindsay Kempb. 1938GBBritish mime (1938-2018)
- Lindsay Crouseb. 1948USactress
- Lindsay Wagnerb. 1949USAmerican actress
- Robert Lindsayb. 1949GBBritish actor
- Lindsay Duncanb. 1950GBScottish actress
- Lindsay Hoyleb. 1957GBSpeaker of the House of Commons (born 1957)
- Lindsay Davenportb. 1976USAmerican tennis player
- Lindsay Priceb. 1976USAmerican actress and singer
- Lindsay Lohanb. 1986USAmerican actress and singer (born 1986)
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)
A formal English salutation is built on the surname, so it needs a full name — on its own, a first name only supports the informal form.
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 86 sources across 43 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 33K | #1,052 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 32K | #1,073 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 32K | #1,008 |
| BE Belgium | Familienaam.be — Belgian family-name frequency (population register) | 2008 | 28 | #38,336 |
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 given-name tokens
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
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
- Is Lindsay a male or female name?
- Lindsay 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.
- What does the name Lindsay mean, and where does it come from?
- person from Lindsay in Lincolnshire or Suffolk, or anglicized Irish Gaelic surnames Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
- What are other forms of the name Lindsay?
- In the etymology graph, Lindsey, Lindy and Lyndsey are forms of the same name in other languages.
- How do you pronounce Lindsay?
- A machine transcription gives /lɪndzi/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does Lindsay have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 148 thousand people named Lindsey, more than in any other country we hold.
- How common is the name Lindsay?
- In Brazil, the national register counted 1,110 people named Lindsay in 2022, about 1 in 191 thousand residents.
- How common is Lindsay compared with other names?
- In the United States, Lindsay is the 288th most common given name of 2,815,431 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Lindsay?
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/lindsayThe 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, “Lindsay” — the 288th most common given name in United States. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.