Lin

Lin is the 259th most common surname in the United States, shared by 116,776 people at the 2020 census. That is about one person in 2,560.

By the numbers

People: 116,776
Rank: 259th
How common: 1 in 2,560
Per 100,000: 39.1

Who bears the name

How people with the surname Lin described their own race and Hispanic origin at the 2020 census:

Asian or Pacific Islander, not Hispanic 95.7%
White, not Hispanic 2.0%
Two or more races, not Hispanic 1.4%
Hispanic or Latino 0.5%
Black, not Hispanic 0.3%
American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic 0.03%

Notable people called Lin

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
Jeremy Lin (born 1988)Taiwanese-American basketball player
Lin Tse-hsu (1785–1850)Chinese scholar and politician
Ruby Lin (born 1976)Taiwanese actress, singer and producer
Maya Lin (born 1959)American sculptor and architect
Lin Huiyin (1904–1955)Chinese architect and writer

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

Surnames like Lin

Also a first name

Lin has been given to 1,897 American babies as a first name since 1898, peaking in 1952. See it as a given name.

Try it on yourself

Source: US Census Bureau, Frequently Occurring Surnames, 2020. The Census describes the file as the surnames borne by 100 or more people; rarer names are not published. The line is not quite exact, and 617 published names come in under it, the smallest at 92 people. Race and Hispanic origin are self-reported. Rates are worked out against the 298.9 million people the file's own figures are calculated on, which is fewer than the census counted in all: the difference is everyone whose surname was too rare to publish.