Lam
surname · English · Latin script
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
Lam is a surname, most frequently recorded in Vietnam, where it is the 46th most common surname. It appears chiefly in English and Vietnamese, written in the Latin script. Recorded meaning: nickname for a gentle person, from Old Norse lamb ‘lamb’, or possibly for a lame man.
- HKHong Kong1 in 231◐
- VNVietnam1 in 605
- SGSingapore1 in 1.8K
carrying the name, one hue, darker where it is more common. Hover a country for its figure.
- ≈135K ●
- 2 ●
- Sources
- 467 ●
- 1 in 369 ◐
across 17 countries
recorded for this name
538K records
Official registry-verified
Ecuador
Spellings & scripts●
Locally spelled Laem in PH Philippines.
Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records; ○ marks a model's transliteration. Click a spelling to open its page.
Meaning & origin●
nickname for a gentle person, from Old Norse lamb ‘lamb’, or possibly for a lame man. Old Norse lami.
Sources 1
- Dictionary of American Family Names
Attested across 2 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world●
Sorted by bearers counted by national registers, records where none counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| VN Vietnam | #46 | 582,024 | 26 rec. | — | listed | Lam | 6 |
| US United States | #683 | 55,554 | 396K rec. | 1 in 6K | 60K | Lam | 467 |
| EC Ecuador | — | 45,808△ | 214 rec. | 1 in 369 | 46K | — | 24 |
| AU Australia | #183 | 38,838 | 40K rec. | — | 1 | Lam | 226 |
| CA Canada | #214 | 23,843 | 23K rec. | — | 1 | Lam | 208 |
| GB United Kingdom | #947 | 22,131 | 19K rec. | — | — | Lam | 173 |
| MY Malaysia | #231 | 15,925 | 13K rec. | — | 2.5K | Lam | 113 |
| AR Argentina | — | 15,169 | — | 1 in 3K | 15K | — | — |
| HK Hong Kong | #30 | 12,722 | 14K rec. | — | — | Lam | 155 |
| ES Spain | — | 6,637△ | 432 rec. | 1 in 7.5K | 6.6K | — | 52 |
| SG Singapore | #87 | 5,507 | 5.5K rec. | — | — | Lam | 144 |
| CN China | — | 3,860 | 1.4K rec. | — | — | Lam | 87 |
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table. How that works.
Languages●
- English1.1M66%
- Vietnamese262K16%
- Chinese63K4%
- Spanish43K3%
- 29K2%
Show as table
| Name | Records | Note |
|---|---|---|
| English | 1,076,540 | 66% |
| Vietnamese | 261,940 | 16% |
| Chinese | 63,052 | 4% |
| Spanish | 42,659 | 3% |
| 29,102 | 2% |
Language is read off each record's context, not declared by the bearer; a share is of all records for this spelling.
Other recorded senses●
Lam is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In English, To beat or thrash.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Vietnamese, blue
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In German, from LAND
as a nameDeutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung
In Danish, 2. nickname for a lame man (from ON lami).
as a nameA dictionary of surnames
In Danish, name for a lame man (from ON lami).
as a nameThe Oxford Names Companion - The definitive guide to Surnames, First Names, and Place Names of the British Isles
Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.
Over time●
Show as table
| Year | records |
|---|---|
| 1977 | 8 |
| 1978 | 10 |
| 1979 | 12 |
| 1980 | 12 |
| 1981 | 18 |
| 1982 | 20 |
| 1983 | 27 |
| 1984 | 22 |
| 1985 | 19 |
| 1986 | 19 |
| 1987 | 13 |
| 1988 | 14 |
| 1989 | 10 |
| 1990 | 9 |
| 1991 | 21 |
| 1992 | 14 |
| 1993 | 15 |
| 1994 | 14 |
| 1995 | 13 |
| 1996 | 11 |
| 1997 | 10 |
| 1998 | 10 |
| 1999 | 13 |
| 2000 | 11 |
| 2001 | 9 |
| 2002 | 8 |
| 2003 | 9 |
| 2004 | 6 |
| 2005 | 9 |
| 2006 | 7 |
| 2007 | 10 |
| 2008 | 11 |
| 2009 | 12 |
| 2010 | 15 |
| 2011 | 11 |
| 2012 | 10 |
| 2013 | 11 |
| 2014 | 8 |
| 2015 | 8 |
| 2016 | 17 |
| 2017 | 7 |
| 2018 | 9 |
| 2019 | 9 |
| 2021 | 7 |
| 2022 | 6 |
| 2024 | 8 |
| 2025 | 5 |
US SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) — 47 years between 1977–2025. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.
Notable people with this name●
- Thích Quảng Đứcb. 1897VNnot in their usual nameVietnamese monk who self-immolated in 1963
- Lin Biaob. 1907CNnot in their usual nameChinese Communist military commander and politician
- Lam Ching-yingb. 1952CNHong Kong actor and choreographer (1952–1997)
- Carrie Lamb. 1957GBformer Chief Executive of Hong Kong
- Justin Linb. 1971USnot in their usual nameTaiwanian film director
- Dan Linb. 1973TWnot in their usual nameTaiwanese-American film producer (born 1973)
- Shu Qib. 1976TWnot in their usual nameTaiwanese actress (born 1976)
- Lin Danb. 1983CNnot in their usual nameChinese badminton player
- Jeremy Linb. 1988USnot in their usual nameTaiwanese-American basketball player
- Awkwafinab. 1988USnot in their usual nameAmerican actress, comedian, and rapper
The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).
Evidence●
Attested in 72 sources across 38 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 60K | #555 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 56K | #611 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 44K | #706 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 4.2K | #3,669 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 1.4K | #3,669 |
| SE Sweden | Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population) | — | 743 | #1,327 |
| NO Norway | SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population) | — | 722 | #1,725 |
| DK Denmark | Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts) | — | 534 | #794 |
| CH Switzerland | BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames) | 2024 | 531 | #2,427 |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1991 | 507 | — |
| FI Finland | DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup) | — | 419 | #8,010 |
| IN India | Instate — India surnames (clean spellings) from electoral rolls | — | 389 | #11,125 |
Reference works 5
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-09-12 data build · 425 rows in the corpus for this spelling.
Frequently asked questions
- How common is the name Lam?
- We estimate roughly 135 thousand people bear Lam (counting its spellings and scripts) across 17 countries in our records.
- In which country does Lam have the most bearers?
- Lam is most frequently recorded in Vietnam, where it is most often spelled lam.
- How common is Lam compared with other names?
- In Vietnam, Lam is the 46th most common surname of 58,673 surnames recorded there.
- What does the name Lam mean?
- Recorded meaning: nickname for a gentle person, from Old Norse lamb ‘lamb’, or possibly for a lame man.
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/lamThe same payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. Rate-limited for casual use. Bulk access and licensing.
About this data
Data snapshot . Figures are rebuilt periodically and will change.
Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.
Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.
Cite this page Mondonomo, “Lam” — the 46th most common surname in Vietnam. Data snapshot 2026-09-12.