Linette
Feminine · “idol”
Tennyson made this name. He needed an English form of a Welsh woman in the Arthurian material — she is Eluned in Welsh and Lunete in the French romances, a sharp-tongued maid who leads a knight on a long errand and mocks him the whole way — and he called her Lynette. The poem was read everywhere, and the name entered general use within a generation.
How old is the name Linette?
Linette first appears in US birth records in 1925 — 100 years ago. The typical Linette alive today was born around 1971, making them about 54 years old. About 3,900 people named Linette are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Linette most popular?
Linette peaked in 1970, reaching #860 nationally. Today it ranks #13208, 12,348 places below that high. See the whole 1970 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Eluned to Linette
The story of Linette
The Idylls of the King appeared through the 1860s and 1870s and was one of the great publishing successes of the Victorian period; the poem Gareth and Lynette gave English a name it had not had. Welsh already had Eluned and kept it. Meanwhile American naming was adding French endings to short bases, which produced Linette by a different road, and both streams appear in the record. This spelling — single n, i rather than y — is the simplified American version, and it peaked around 1970.
Meaningscholars disagree
idol, image
The Welsh Eluned is usually read from a word meaning an image or idol, though the derivation is not secure. There is a second and quite separate possibility for this spelling: Linette may be Lin with the French diminutive -ette, in which case nothing attaches. A third reading connects it to the French linotte, a linnet, which is a small finch.
How the name formed
- Eluned
- Lunete
- Lynette
- Linette
Related forms: Eluned · Lunete
Pronouncing Linette
lih-NET
Two syllables with the stress at the back, which the -ette ending guarantees. Some families say LIN-et with the weight in front; both are heard.
Nicknames for Linette
Moderate
What the data says
146 years of official birth records
The long climb, and where it stands now
The same years in position rather than babies
- First recorded
- 1925
- Most girls named
- 1971154 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #860reached in 1970
- Change vs 2023
- −33.3%6 in 2025, from 9
Rank is a position, a count is a headcount, and they move independently — a name can hold its rank while the number of babies behind it falls. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration.
Linette in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Eluned in Welsh — related form
- Lunete in French — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas, California.
Linettes among us
people named Linette are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 267,878 born in 2025 was named Linette
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Linette
- #13208
- Linette on the 2025 chart
- #871
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Linette went to 6 girls in 2025, but Lynette and Lynnette are the same name said out loud. Together the 3 spellings went to 89, which makes it the 871st most-given girls’ name of the year — 12,337 places above the chart.
About 1 girl in 18,059 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 267,878 for Linette itself.
Spellings are grouped by a fixed rule that folds interchangeable English spellings of one sound (ck/k, ph/f, x/ks, a non-initial y for i) and keeps vowels apart, so Sean and Shawn stay separate names. It errs towards splitting: a family here is never larger than the truth. SSA national data, 2025. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Joetta test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Linette's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Joetta climbed just as high around 1938, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Joetta's path sketches the road Linette is walking now.
Linette sits in the calm middle of the cycle — neither chasing a wave nor sliding off one. Middle-of-the-cycle names age slowly and predictably.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Linette beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Linette in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- It has a documented literary origin with a named author and a decade.
- Lin and Nettie are both available and belong to different worlds.
- Seven letters, two syllables, and readable on sight.
- The Welsh original is a genuinely appealing character, which is more than most name-sources offer.
- Lynette is the commoner spelling and will be written instead.
- The stress is unsettled between the front and the back.
- It belongs to a mid-century American generation and reads that way.
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Linette
Feminine · #13208 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Linettes are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 3,900 people named Linette are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Linette?
- Linette is one of 3 recorded spellings. Lynette is the more common one — 66 births in 2025 against 6 for Linette.
- How popular is the name Linette in 2025?
- Linette ranks #13208 among US girl names in 2025, with 6 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Linette?
- About 1 in every 267,878 US girls born in 2025 was named Linette — 6 in all.
- Will my child share the name Linette with classmates?
- Linette will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Linette
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
John#13208 · Vinnie#13208 · Margery#13208 · Jossie#13208 · Tressa#13208 · Erie#13208 · Bernadine#13208 · Euna#13208
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Linette? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Linette and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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