Lyn
Lyn is a girl's name that peaked in 1957, when it was the 577th most popular in the United States. It is given to both boys and girls. In 2025 it ranked 10,107th. About 6,600 Lyns are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 66.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Lyn boys named Lyn
Girls and boys called Lyn
years more girls than boys years more boys than girls
Both, throughout, without either side ever taking it over: 7,220 girls and 1,561 boys in all, and in 1990 the split was 24 to 7.
The girls’ share of each year’s babies of the name, in the 58 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
- 8,781
- Estimated living today
- 6,600
- Median age today
- 66
- Peak year
- 1957
- Best rank
- 577th
- Rank in 2025
- 10,107th
- First recorded
- 1896
- Girls / boys
- 7,220 / 1,561
How old the living Lyns are
born that year still alive today
Of the 8,781 babies given the name since 1896, about 6,600 are alive — 75 in every hundred. Roughly 90 of them are children and 3,600 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1959 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 Lyns
- Lyn McClements (born 1951)Australian swimmer, Olympic gold medallist
- Lyn Collins (1948–2005)American musician
- Kate Lyn Sheil (born 1985)American actress
- Lyn Bell (born 1947)Australian swimmer, Olympic silver medallist
People named Lyn with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Lyn is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Lyn is most concentrated in Massachusetts (3.3×), California (1.9×), Wisconsin (1.9×), Connecticut (1.8×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 1957
The most popular girls’ names the year Lyn peaked:
Lyn elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Scotland girls | Lyn | 430 | 128th |
| France girls | Lyn | 280 | 1,326th |
| Switzerland girls | Lyn | 120 | 449th |
| Ireland girls | Lyn | 40 | 369th |
| Belgium girls | Lyn | 29 | 845th |
| England and Wales girls | Lyn | 17 | 4,524th |
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.
Lyn: births by region
| Region | Country | Spelling | Births | Share of the region | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| German girls | Switzerland | Lyn | 102 | 0.008% | 357th |
| French girls | Switzerland | Lyn | 14 | 0.003% | 492nd |
| Italian girls | Switzerland | Lyn | 4 | 0.006% | 176th |
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.
By canton, Lyn is most concentrated in Bern, where 0.01% of children were given it – 27 of them.
Lyn: rank by region
In 2009, Lyn was given 5 times or more in 1 region of Belgium.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flanders | Lyn | 867 | 5 |
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.
Lyn 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.
| Country | Spelling | First forename | Any forename |
|---|---|---|---|
| Finland girls | Lyn | — | 12 |
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.
Related names
Lyn against another name
Two names on one chart, with the year one overtook the other.
Try it on yourself
Source: US Social Security Administration, national and state baby-name files, 1880–2025. Counts include only births registered with the SSA, and names with fewer than five births in a year are not published. The living estimate applies SSA cohort life tables to those births; it counts people born in the United States, so it misses anyone who arrived later and anyone who has left.