Lin.
A male or female given name.
Meaning & usage
A male or female given name.
A surname
A surname from Chinese, equivalent to English Forest, Woods, or Grove A surname from Mandarin
A surname from Chinese, equivalent to English Forest, Woods, or Grove A surname from Gan
A surname from Chinese, equivalent to English Forest, Woods, or Grove A surname from Wu
A surname from Chinese, equivalent to English Forest, Woods, or Grove A surname from Xiang
Where this word comes from
From Chinese: compare Mandarin 林 (lín), Gan 林 (lin⁴), Wu 林, Xiang 林 (lin²). 林 itself is composed of a reduplication of 木 (“wood, tree”). Literally, “forest”.
A county of Lüliang, Shanxi, China.
Where this word comes from
From Mandarin 臨／临 (Lín).
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.