Lan

given name · Vietnamese · Latin script

Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise

Lan is a given name, most frequently recorded in the United Kingdom, where it is the 52nd most common given name. It appears chiefly in Vietnamese and English, written in the Latin script. Recorded meaning: alternatively, perhaps a nickname from a derivative of lania ‘hind’, ‘doe’.

rarermore common
  • VNVietnam1 in 202◐
  • FRFrance1 in 284
  • GBUnited Kingdom1 in 342

carrying the name, one hue, darker where it is more common. Hover a country for its figure.

≈493K ●

across 8 countries

#117 ●

of 16M given names

7 ●

recorded for this name

Sources
554 ●

13M records

Official registry-verified

1 in 284 ◐

France

Spellings & scripts●

LynnLatin · English●9.4M records
СелинCyrillic · Russian●47K records
세린Hangul · Korean●4.3K records
ᲚინიGeorgian · Georgian●6 records
লিনBengali · Bangla●4 records
ลุ๋นThai · Thai●3 records
ΣελίνGreek · Greek●1 records

4 other spellings are counted as the same name:

Locally spelled Lynn in US United States, GB United Kingdom, AU Australia and 8 more, Celina in BR Brazil, AR Argentina, MX Mexico and 4 more, Celine in FR France, NO Norway, BE Belgium and 2 more and Lyn 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●

alternatively, perhaps a nickname from a derivative of lania ‘hind’, ‘doe’.

Sources 1

  • Dictionary of American Family Names

Attested across 17 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world●

Sorted by bearers counted by national registers, records where none counts.

Where Lan is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
GB United Kingdom#52604,625580K rec.—10Lynn219
VN Vietnam#34421,891206K rec.—listedLan211
AR Argentina#371259,978170K rec.—9KCelina97
FR France#51239,275810K rec.1 in 284239KCeline381
AU Australia#98212,313205K rec.—104Lynn195
CA Canada#51209,034215K rec.—28Lynn216
PH Philippines#94168,093142K rec.——Lyn127
US United States#35164,4069.8M rec.1 in 2K164KLynn554
MX Mexico#49662,49053K rec.—234Celina154
DE Germany#33959,03657K rec.—5Lynn164
IT Italy#16855,45860K rec.—661Lynn58
VE Venezuela#51947,31629K rec.——Celina39

Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table. How that works.

Languages●

  • Vietnamese446K59%
  • English150K20%
  • Chinese44K6%
  • 21K3%
  • Malay18K2%
Show as table
Languages in which the name is recorded
NameRecordsNote
Vietnamese445,91859%
English150,25620%
Chinese43,7136%
21,4883%
Malay18,2672%

Language is read off each record's context, not declared by the bearer; a share is of all records for this spelling.

Other names spelled this way◐

Lan is also recorded as 5 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • English given name218K records spelled Lan22 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Australia, Malaysia, United Kingdom

    Languages: English, German, Dutch

    Also written Lân, Lãń, Lần, Lãn, Lån

  • a separate given name125K records spelled Lan26 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Sweden, United States, Benin, Malaysia

    Also written Län, Läñ, Lẫn, Ĺàñ, Lăn

  • a separate given name32K records spelled Lan10 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, China, United Kingdom, India

    Also written Lân, Làn, Ĺąn, Lãn, Ḷāṅ

  • French given name19K records spelled Lan4 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in France, United States, Canada, Malaysia

    Also written L'An, Lân, L'Ǻñ

  • Portuguese given name8.7K records spelled Lan6 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Brazil, United States, United Kingdom, China

    Also written Lãn, Låñ, Làn, Lañ, Lân

80 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Other recorded senses●

Lan 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.

  • from a place named Lan-tian (meaning ‘blue field’) in Guangdong province.

    as a nameDictionary of American Family Names

  • perhaps from the vocabulary word lan ‘plowland’, ‘soil’.

    as a nameDictionary of American Family Names

  • In English, Acronym of local area network.

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • In Vietnamese, to spread; to run

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • In Vietnamese, Hán-Việt; tên chúa Nguyễn, cùng bộ thủy.

    as a nameTên Họ Người Việt Nam

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●

0204060196019802000202047 · 1982

Show as table
Lan in SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present), United States, 1948–2025
Yearrecords
19486
19507
19535
19557
19566
19576
19675
19685
19708
197111
19729
19745
197513
197612
197716
197827
197920
198032
198143
198247
198344
198439
198528
198630
198730
198820
198923
199024
199131
199224
199318
199427
199514
199613
199712
19988
199912
200021
200111
20027
20037
200410
20057
20069
200814
20097
20108
20116
201213
20137
20146
20155
20166
20188
20196
20216
20225
20235
20249
20258

US SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) — 60 years between 1948–2025. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.

Notable people with this name●

1850190019502000Feng Youlan, b. 1895Grace Chang, b. 1933Trương Mỹ Lan, b. 1956Ma Lan, b. 1962Niels Lan Doky, b. 1963Mai Lan, b. 1982Lan Phương, b. 1983Lu Lan, b. 1987Quách Thị Lan, b. 1995Lana Condor, b. 1997
  • Feng Youlanb. 1895CNnot in their usual nameChinese philosopher and historian (1895–1990)
  • Grace Changb. 1933CNnot in their usual nameHong Kong actress and singer (1933–2026)
  • Trương Mỹ Lanb. 1956VNVietnamese businesswoman
  • Ma Lanb. 1962CNactress
  • Niels Lan Dokyb. 1963VNDanish jazz pianist, composer and producer
  • Mai Lanb. 1982FRFrench-Vietnamese singer and fashion designer
  • Lan Phươngb. 1983VNVietnamese actress
  • Lu Lanb. 1987CNChinese badminton player
  • Quách Thị Lanb. 1995VNVietnamese athlete
  • Lana Condorb. 1997USnot in their usual nameVietnamese-American actress

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 37 countries.

Official registers attesting Lan
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex202013K#1,923
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 202020204.1K#7,828
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 201020103.3K#9,910
SI Sloveniastat.si Imena rojstva — full name register (per-token frequency + rank)—2.9K#191
SI SloveniaSURS — resident population given names20252.7K#94
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 200020002.3K#12,563
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex20201.7K#1,923
SE SwedenSkatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population)—507#2,749
ES SpainINE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal)—317#11,548
ES SpainINE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos)—317#11,514
FI FinlandDVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup)—288#2,870
NO NorwaySSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population)—266#3,883

Reference works 6

  • 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)
  • jeantosti.com — Dictionnaire des noms de famille de France et d'ailleurs (Jean Tosti)

These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.

Register rows as of the 2026-09-12 data build · 505 rows in the corpus for this spelling.

Frequently asked questions

How common is the name Lan?
We estimate roughly 493 thousand people bear Lan (counting its spellings and scripts) across 8 countries in our records.
In which country does Lan have the most bearers?
Lan is most frequently recorded in the United Kingdom, where it is most often spelled lynn.
How common is Lan compared with other names?
In the United Kingdom, Lan is the 52nd most common given name of 369,273 given names recorded there.
Is Lan a male or female name?
Lan is a female name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
What does the name Lan mean?
Recorded meaning: alternatively, perhaps a nickname from a derivative of lania ‘hind’, ‘doe’.
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/lan

The 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

● measured from records◐ inferred from the name graph○ machine-generated

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, “Lan” — the 52nd most common given name in United Kingdom. Data snapshot 2026-09-12.

See how Lan parses inside a full name →