Lin

Popularity, 1880–2025

girls named Lin boys named Lin

Girls and boys called Lin

years more girls than boys years more boys than girls

Lin crossed from boys to girls in 1948, and has stayed there for 8 of the years counted since. At its furthest it was 66% girls, and in 1966 it was 48%.

The girls’ share of each year’s babies of the name, in the 23 years in which at least 25 babies got it. The line touches the middle more often than there are crossings marked: a year or two on the other side is not a name changing hands, and only a move that holds for 5 counted years and reaches 60/40 is recorded as one. All 581 names that changed sex.

By the numbers

Total US births

1,897

Estimated living today

1,400

Median age today

60

Peak year

1952

Best rank

1,641st

Rank in 2025

11,932nd

First recorded

1898

Girls / boys

1,034 / 863

How old the living Lins are

born that year still alive today

Of the 1,897 babies given the name since 1898, about 1,400 are alive — 73 in every hundred. Roughly 220 of them are children and 560 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1965 and half after.

An estimate, not a count. SSA births aged forward through SSA cohort life tables, which know nothing about who left the country or arrived in it — so for a name that mostly came to America rather than being born in it, this is a floor rather than a figure. Where you fall among living Americans.

Notable Lins

• Lin Biao (1907–1971)Chinese Communist military commander and politician
• Lin Yutang (1895–1976)Chinese inventor, novelist and philosopher
• Lin Dan (born 1983)Chinese badminton player
• Lin Shaye (born 1943)American actress
• Gao Lin (born 1986)Chinese footballer
• Lin Chuan (born 1951)Taiwanese politician
• Lin Xiaojun (born 1996)Chinese short track speed skater
• Lin Carter (1930–1988)American fantasy writer, editor, critic

People named Lin with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).

Where Lin is most common

• CA63
• NY35

Relative to how many babies each state records, Lin is most concentrated in California (6.4×), New York (4.6×).

Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.

Names of 1952

The most popular girls’ names the year Lin peaked:

• Linda
• Mary
• Patricia
• Deborah
• Susan
• Barbara

All the names of 1952

Lin elsewhere

Counts come from each country's own records and are not comparable with the US figures above, which cover different years and a different definition of a recorded name. Where a country writes the name several ways, the spellings are added together and the most common is shown. A row marked name registrations is counting something else: Portugal ranks each of a child's two given names separately, so a girl registered Maria Leonor is in both the Maria row and the Leonor row, and that figure is not a number of children.

Lin: births by region

Parts of a country counted above, not extra births. The share is what makes the regions comparable: they differ in size by a factor of three hundred.

Lin: rank by region

In 2023, Lin was given 5 times or more in 1 region of Belgium.

Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Belgium below 5 children – and published nothing after. So a region missing here is one where the name fell outside what was published, not one where it went unused. Places are shared where names tie, and the further down a list a place is, the more names can share it.

Lin by city

One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.

Lin among the living

How many people each country's register counts under the name, rather than how many were given it in any one year. Each register was read on one date, and they are not the same date.

A count of people on a register – Finland on 4 August 2026 – and not of births, so it cannot be compared with the figures above. Names with very few bearers are withheld, and a dash in the first-forename column means the register would not say rather than that nobody goes by it.

Where Lin lives in Spain

Not a count of births but of people: 214 men called Lin and 402 women called Lin were living in Spain on 1 January 2025, of every age, born in any year. Where they live is not spread evenly.

Men: the provinces where it is densest

Listed in 8 of Spain's 52 provinces. In the other 44 it is either held by fewer than 5 people – the point below which the source withholds a name – or it fell past the 5,000 names the source will print for one province. Neither means nobody there is called it. The rate is the source's own, not a share worked out here.

Women: the provinces where it is densest

Listed in 14 of Spain's 52 provinces. In the other 38 it is either held by fewer than 5 people – the point below which the source withholds a name – or it fell past the 5,000 names the source will print for one province. Neither means nobody there is called it. The rate is the source's own, not a share worked out here.

Related names

• Linda
• Lindsey
• Lindsay
• Lincoln
• Lina
• Linwood
• Lindy
• Linnea
• Linnie
• Linden
• Linsey
• Linus

Lin against another name

Two names on one chart, with the year one overtook the other.

• Lin vs Lynn
• Lin vs Linda
• Lin vs Lindsey
• Lin vs Lindsay
• Lin vs Lincoln
• Lin vs Lina

Compare Lin with a name of your own