Lin
A Chinese unisex name meaning delicate and graceful.
Name Census estimates that about 1,358 living Americans carry the first name Lin. It appears on both sides of the gender split, with 54.3% of registrations being female. The average person named Lin today is around 51 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Lin births was 1959 (59 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Lin. Below you will find a gender breakdown showing how the name splits between male and female registrations, a year-by-year popularity chart stretching back to 1880, decade-level totals, the top US states for this name, its meaning and etymology, and a set of frequently asked questions with data-backed answers.
Key insights
- • Lin sits in rare territory as a truly gender-neutral name, given to boys and girls in near-equal numbers.
People living today
1.4K
~ 1 in 252,396 Americans
Peak year
1959
59 babies that year
Average age
51
years old
2024 SSA rank
#13,399
Tracked since 1898
Gender
Gender distribution for Lin
Lin is one of the more evenly split names in the SSA data. Of the 1,890 total registrations, 863 (45.7%) were male and 1,027 (54.3%) were female.
Lin as a male name
- Ranked #13,399 in 2024
- 5 male births in 2024
- Peak: 1959 (28 births)
Lin as a female name
- Ranked #14,471 in 2024
- 6 female births in 2024
- Peak: 1952 (35 births)
Popularity
Lin: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Lin from the 1890s through to the 2020s, spanning 13 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1950s, with 474 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1950s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Lin by decade
The table below breaks the full SSA timeline into ten-year windows. Each row shows how many male and female babies were given the name Lin during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Lins live
Origin
Meaning and history of Lin
The name Lin is believed to have originated in China, where it was derived from the Chinese character 林, meaning "forest" or "woods." This character has been used in Chinese names since ancient times, with its earliest recorded use dating back to the Shang Dynasty (c. 1600-1046 BCE).
In Chinese culture, the name Lin was often associated with a connection to nature and the natural world. It was a popular name choice for families living in rural or forested areas, as it was believed to bring good luck and harmony with the environment.
One of the earliest recorded instances of the name Lin can be found in the Classic of Poetry (Shijing), an ancient collection of Chinese poems and songs dating back to the 11th-7th centuries BCE. The name appears in several poems, often associated with descriptions of natural landscapes and the beauty of the forests.
Throughout Chinese history, there have been numerous notable figures who bore the name Lin. One of the most famous was Lin Zexu (1785-1850), a scholar-official during the Qing Dynasty who played a pivotal role in the events leading to the First Opium War. Another notable Lin was Lin Biao (1907-1971), a military leader and one of the key figures in the Chinese Communist Revolution.
The name Lin also made its way to other East Asian countries, such as Korea and Japan, where it was adapted to fit their respective writing systems and cultural contexts. In Korea, the name is sometimes rendered as "Rim," while in Japan, it can be written as "Rin" or "Hayashi."
Beyond East Asia, the name Lin has been adopted and used in various cultures around the world, often as a shortened form of longer names or as a result of immigration and cultural exchange. In the Western world, some notable figures with the name Lin include Lin-Manuel Miranda, the acclaimed American composer, actor, and playwright best known for creating the hit musical Hamilton.
Other notable individuals with the name Lin throughout history include Lin Huiyin (1904-1955), a Chinese architect and writer; Lin Yutang (1895-1976), a Chinese writer and inventor of the Chinese typewriter; Lin Dan (born 1983), a Chinese professional badminton player and Olympic champion; and Lin Zhao (1932-1968), a Chinese writer and political dissident who was executed during the Cultural Revolution.
People
Lin + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Lin as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with L
Other first names starting with L with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Lin: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Lin?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 1,358 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Lin going back to 1880 and adjusting each cohort for expected survival using CDC actuarial life tables. The result is an age-weighted living-bearer count, not a raw birth total. That works out to about 1 in 252,396 US residents.
Is Lin a common name?
We classify Lin as "Rare". It ranks above 91.9% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 1,890 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Lin most popular?
The single biggest year for Lin was 1959, when 59 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Lin is about 51 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
Is Lin a female name?
Yes, 54.3% of people registered as Lin in the SSA data are female. You can see the full per-sex comparison in the gender distribution section above, which includes the latest year rank, birth count, and peak year for each sex.
Where does this data come from?
First-name figures come from the Social Security Administration's national baby name files, which cover every name on a birth certificate from 1880 to 2024. Living-bearer estimates layer in CDC actuarial life tables broken out by sex to account for mortality. The population baseline (342,754,338) is the Census Bureau's latest national estimate. You can read the full calculation on our methodology page.