Yin
given name · Latin script
Meaning, in English: A principle in Chinese and related East Asian philosophies associated with dark, cool, female, etc. elements of the natural world
Used for both men and women· registers list it under both sexes; no split published
(measured from records)Officially recorded in 32 countries · latest register: Census Bureau, 2020
/jɪn/(recorded in a dictionary) English · from Wiktionary
Yin is a given name used for both men and women, written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country. In Hong Kong it is the 97th most common given name.
- HKHong Kong≈1 in 610(inferred from the name graph)
- CNChina≈1 in 970
- MYMalaysia≈1 in 1.4K
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Countries with no figure are shown too: flat where a national register lists the name without counting it, hatched where only our records hold it. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- China (inferred from the name graph)
- Record sources
- 342 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 607 (inferred from the name graph)
≈1,500,000 people, est.
corpus datasets behind its best-documented spelling
strongest: highest-authority source
Hong Kong, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin
(measured from records)A principle in Chinese and related East Asian philosophies associated with dark, cool, female, etc. elements of the natural world.
Cited for this meaning 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested across 2 languages in the etymology graph.
How Yin is read
(measured from records)Yin 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.
- English42%
A principle in Chinese and related East Asian philosophies associated with dark, cool, female, etc. elements of the natural world.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- Chinese24%
nonstandard spelling of yīn
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- Malay16%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Yin in Malay.
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)Yin 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 | — | ≈1,500,000 est. | ≈1 in 970 | — | Yin | 103 |
| MY Malaysia | #150 | ≈26,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.4K | — | Yin | 99 |
| HK Hong Kong | #97 | ≈12,000 est. | ≈1 in 607 | — | Yin | 85 |
| US United States | — | 3,598 | 1 in 92K | 9.7K | Yin | 342 |
| SG Singapore | #397 | ≈1,200 est. | ≈1 in 4.9K | — | Yin | 98 |
| AU Australia | #788 | ≈1,100 est. | ≈1 in 26K | 1 | Yin | 188 |
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; SA BDM — Popular baby names South Australia (1944–present). 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)Yin 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.
Plata
as a name25,000 nombres de bebé. La mejor guía para escoger el nombre adecuado
In och, Be a follower, successor, heir, posterity
as a wordSchuessler, ABC Etymological Dictionary of Old Chinese (2007)
In enm, alternative form of þin (“thy”)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Yoruba, your (second-person plural or honorific possessive pronoun)
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)- Zhang Yanb. 150CNnot in their usual namelate 2nd century Chinese leader of the Heishan bandits
- Li Xianb. 653not in their usual nameTang Dynasty crown prince
- Ho Yinb. 1908PTPortuguese politician
- Patrick Tse Yinb. 1936CNHong Kong actor (1936–2026)
- Xi Xib. 1937CNnot in their usual namewriter from Hong Kong
- Yao Yanb. 1974CNnot in their usual nameChinese badminton player
- Athena Lee Yenb. 1981TWnot in their usual nameTaiwanese actress
- Yin Changb. 1989USAmerican actress
- Lan Yanb. 1990CNnot in their usual nameChinese actress, pop singer, and model
- Han Eumnot in their usual namepolitician
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)57 registers and reference works attest this spelling, across 32 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 9.7K | #3,572 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 6.5K | #5,324 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 4.2K | #7,245 |
Reference works 4
- 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)
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 Yin mean, and where does it come from?
- A principle in Chinese and related East Asian philosophies associated with dark, cool, female, etc. elements of the natural world. Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- How do you pronounce Yin?
- It depends on the language: in English /jɪn/ (Wiktionary); in Malay /jin/. Transcriptions are machine-generated except where a dictionary is named.
- How common is the name Yin?
- In the United States, the national register counted 3,598 people named Yin in 2020, about 1 in 92 thousand residents.
- How common is Yin compared with other names?
- In Hong Kong, Yin is the 97th most common given name of 23,276 given names recorded there.
- Is Yin a male or female name?
- Yin is used for both men and women. National registers that list it by sex count it under both: United States (Census Bureau, 2020), Finland (DVV) and Netherlands (Meertens NVB). We don't publish a percentage split.
- In which country does Yin have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 1.5 million people named Yin in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled yin.
What do you want to know about Yin?
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/yinThe 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, “Yin” — the 97th most common given name in Hong Kong. Data snapshot 2026-10-13.