Lîm

surname · Latin script

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

Lîm is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Malaysia than in any other country, where it is the 13th most common surname. Recorded meaning: From Korean, including 임 (Im), 林 or 任; 림 (Rim), 林.

rarermore common
  • MYMalaysia≈1 in 90(inferred from the name graph)
  • SGSingapore≈1 in 97
  • PHPhilippines≈1 in 977

carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.

Malaysia (inferred from the name graph)

≈360,000 people, est.

Sources
498 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

≈1 in 90 (inferred from the name graph)

Malaysia, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Spellings & scripts(measured from records)

One other spelling is counted as the same name:

Locally spelled Lim in US United States, MY Malaysia, PH Philippines and 4 more.

Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.

Meaning & origin(measured from records)

From Korean, including 임 (Im), 林 or 任; 림 (Rim), 林.

Sources 1

Attested across 17 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Lîm counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.

Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.

Where Lîm is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
MY Malaysia#13≈360,000 est.≈1 in 902.5KLim211
CN China—≈170,000 est.≈1 in 8K—Lim66
PH Philippines#52≈110,000 est.≈1 in 977—Lim194
SG Singapore#2≈64,000 est.≈1 in 97—Lim236
US United States#84837,0211 in 9K40KLim498
AU Australia#98≈15,000 est.≈1 in 1.6K—Lim251
HK Hong Kong#205≈4,900 est.≈1 in 1.5K—Lim90

Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.

Registers cited: Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; data.gov.my — Name Popularity Dashboard (JPN, by decade and ethnicity). Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.

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

Other names spelled this way(inferred from the name graph)

Lîm is also recorded as 3 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • Korean surname19 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in South Korea, United States, Malaysia, Canada

    Also written Lim, Rim, 림, Urim, U-Rim

  • Thai surname155 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines

    Also written แซ่ลิ้ม, แซ่ลิ่ม, Lim, หลุม, ลิม

  • Bangla surname8 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Malaysia, Singapore, United States, Philippines

    Languages: Bangla, Odia

    Also written Lim, Lumi, ଲିମି, Limi

6 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(measured from records)

Lîm is also recorded in one other lexicon, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

  • In kix, To die

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

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.

Notable people with this name(measured from records)

190019502000Lin Biao, b. 1907Lam Ching-ying, b. 1952Carrie Lam, b. 1957Maya Lin, b. 1959Justin Lin, b. 1971Dan Lin, b. 1973Shu Qi, b. 1976Lin Dan, b. 1983Jeremy Lin, b. 1988Awkwafina, b. 1988
  • Lin Biaob. 1907CNnot in their usual nameChinese Communist military commander and politician
  • Lam Ching-yingb. 1952CNnot in their usual nameHong Kong actor and choreographer (1952–1997)
  • Carrie Lamb. 1957GBnot in their usual nameformer Chief Executive of Hong Kong
  • Maya Linb. 1959USnot in their usual nameAmerican sculptor and architect (born 1959)
  • 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(measured from records)

No register attests this spelling yet

None of the official registers or reference works in our corpus lists Lîm under this spelling. The statistics on this page rest on person records, and the related names are inferred from the name graph.

Frequently asked questions

What does the name Lîm mean, and where does it come from?
From Korean, including 임 (Im), 林 or 任; 림 (Rim), 林. Recorded by Wiktionary.
In which country does Lîm have the most bearers?
Mondonomo estimates about 362 thousand people named Lîm in Malaysia, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled lim.
How common is the name Lîm?
In the United States, the national register counted 37,021 people named Lîm in 2010, about 1 in 9.0 thousand residents.
How common is Lîm compared with other names?
In Malaysia, Lîm is the 13th most common surname of 291,743 surnames recorded there.

What do you want to know about Lîm?

Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.

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Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/l%C3%AEm

The payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.

About this data

measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated

These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.

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, “Lîm” — the 13th most common surname in Malaysia. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Lîm parses inside a full name →