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.
For a British comparison, Name Census UK has a UK baby-name profile for Lin with official rankings and popularity over time.
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
Census
Lin in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 10,721 people with the first name Lin, which placed it at #2,350 in the published first-name tables. This is a snapshot of people who already had the name at the time of the Census.
The SSA sections elsewhere on this page answer a different question: how often parents gave the name to babies over time. The "people living today" figure on this page is different again: it is a current estimate built from SSA birth records and age-based survival rates, so the two numbers are not expected to match exactly.
2020 Census rank
#2,350
National first-name rank
People counted
11K
10,721 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
3.5
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
Asian and Pacific Islander
78.5% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Lin
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Lin is Asian/Pacific Islander at 78.5%. The next largest groups are White (15.5%) and Hispanic (2.4%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself.
The bar chart below shows how people with the first name Lin described their own race and ethnicity on the 2020 Census form. The Census Bureau groups responses into six broad categories: White, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, Asian and Pacific Islander, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Two or More Races. When a category has too few respondents for a given name, the Bureau suppresses the figure to protect individual privacy, which is why some names show fewer than six slices.
Percentages are shown so the breakdown is easy to read across every published category. Because the 2020 Census first-name file also includes raw headcounts for each group, Name Census can show those alongside the percentages in the legend and hover tooltip.
Keep in mind that these are self-reported numbers. A first name does not determine a person's race or ethnicity, and the distribution you see here reflects the specific population who happened to carry the name Lin at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- Asian and Pacific Islander78.5% · 8,418
- White15.5% · 1,659
- Hispanic or Latino2.4% · 256
- Black or African American2.2% · 234
- Two or more races1.3% · 141
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.1% · 13
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)
2020 Census snapshot
The 2020 Census sex table shows Lin on both sides of the split. Of the 10,717 people counted with this name, 3,146 were male (29.4%) and 7,571 were female (70.6%).
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.
How common was Lin in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 10,721 people with the name Lin, or 3.55 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #2,350 in the national Census ranking for first names.
Why is the Census count different from the living estimate?
Because they measure different things. The Census figure is a count of people who had the name Lin in 2020. The living estimate aims to answer a current question instead: how many people with the name are alive today, based on SSA birth records and age-based survival rates. Since one number is a 2020 snapshot and the other is a present-day estimate, they are not expected to be identical.
What does the Census say about the gender split for Lin?
The 2020 Census sex table shows Lin on both sides of the split. Of the 10,717 people counted with this name, 3,146 were male (29.4%) and 7,571 were female (70.6%). The Census view is a snapshot of people living with the name in 2020, while the SSA section above tracks births across time.
What does the Census say about the background of people named Lin?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Lin is Asian/Pacific Islander at 78.5%. The next largest groups are White (15.5%) and Hispanic (2.4%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself. The percentages in the chart above come from self-reported race and Hispanic-origin responses in the 2020 Census.
Which group reports the name Lin most often in the Census?
Asian/Pacific Islander is the largest reported group for people named Lin in the 2020 Census, accounting for 78.5% (8,418 people in the published table).
Why can the Census sex total and race total differ slightly?
The Census Bureau published separate 2020 tables for sex and for race/Hispanic origin, and the released figures can differ slightly because of privacy protection in the public files. That is why this page treats the gender section and the race/origin section as two related snapshots instead of forcing them into one identical total.
Does every first name have Census demographic data?
No. The public Census first-name release only includes names that met the Bureau's publication rules, so many rarer names in the SSA files have no Census demographic snapshot. When that happens, the SSA trend, gender history, and state sections still appear, but the 2020 Census demographic sections are omitted.
What does the SSA popularity chart show?
The chart tracks births, not the number of people alive with the name today. Each point shows how many babies were given the name Lin in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
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.
Is Lin still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Lin in 2024, and the page above shows its latest-year rank where available. A name can be well past its peak and still remain in steady use, especially if it built up a large population over earlier decades.
Why can a name have a lot of living bearers even if it is not trendy now?
Because living-bearer counts and current baby-name popularity measure different things. A name like Lin can build up a very large population over many decades, even if fewer parents are choosing it now than they did at its peak.
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.
How many people have the name Lin?
For a quick modern take, check how many people share the name Lin on our sister site HowManyOfMe.org.