Linnea
Feminine · Swedish roots · “twinflower”
Linnea is the Swedish name of a small pink woodland flower, the twinflower, which botanists call Linnaea borealis after Carl Linnaeus. Swedish families took the name up in the nineteenth century and carried it across the Atlantic with the great emigration, where it settled quietly into American records and never quite left. Said aloud it has three light syllables and no hard edges anywhere in it.
How old is the name Linnea?
Linnea first appears in US birth records in 1894 — 131 years ago. The typical Linnea alive today was born around 1989, making them about 36 years old. About 8,500 people named Linnea are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Linnea most popular?
Linnea peaked in 1945, reaching #741 nationally. Today it ranks #1443, 702 places below that high. See the whole 1945 chart.
Linnea appears on these lists:
- Midcentury modern: tomorrow's comeback bets
- Scandinavian names, cool by design
- Names ending in -ea
- all guides
Works in Scandinavian families too:
Where it comes from
From lind (Swedish, 'linden tree') to Linnea
The story of Linnea
Carl Linnaeus, the eighteenth-century Swedish naturalist who gave us the system for naming every living thing, had a small northern woodland plant named in his honor: Linnaea borealis, the twinflower. Swedes began using Linnea as a girl's name from that flower in the nineteenth century, part of a wider fashion for names taken from plants and nature. Emigrants from Sweden, Norway and Finland brought it to the United States, which is why it took root in Scandinavian-settled parts of the Upper Midwest and the Pacific Northwest. It has stayed in American use ever since, familiar in some families and unmet in others.
Meaning
twinflower — the flower named for the botanist Carl Linnaeus
Linnaeus's own family name was a Latinized form built on Swedish lind, 'linden tree', so the linden stands a step behind the flower.
How the name formed
- lindSwedish, 'linden tree'
- Linnaeus
- Linnaea borealis
- Linnea
Related forms: Linnéa · Linnea · Linnea · Linnea · Linnaea · Lynnea
Pronouncing Linnea
lin-NAY-uh
Swedish stresses the second syllable, roughly lin-NEH-ah. In American English you will also hear LIN-ee-uh, and both are widely accepted.
Nicknames for Linnea
High
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
- 1894
- Most girls named
- 2015177 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #741reached in 1945
- Change vs 2022
- +9.6%149 in 2025, from 136
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.
Linnea in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Linnéa in Swedish — spelling variant
- Linnea in Norwegian — same name
- Linnea in Finnish — same name
- Linnea in Danish — same name
- Linnaea in Latin (botanical) — spelling variant
- Lynnea in English — spelling variant
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Minnesota, Washington.
Linneas among us
people named Linnea are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 10,787 born in 2025 was named Linnea
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Elease test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Linnea's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Elease climbed just as high around 1923, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Elease's path sketches the road Linnea is walking now.
Linnea 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
Where Linnea is headed
Linnea should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
Medium confidence — fitted on official counts through 2025.
A damped-trend projection of the official birth data — a sketch of momentum, not a promise. Every name's forecast, ranked.
Linnea beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Linnea in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- A concrete, documented meaning: a named flower and the botanist behind it, with no guesswork required.
- Works unchanged in Swedish, Norwegian, Danish and Finnish, so it travels without translation.
- Several established short forms — Linn, Nea, Lin — that are real names in their own right in Scandinavia.
- Familiar-looking and phonetic on the page, built from letters and sounds English readers already handle.
- Two pronunciations circulate in American English, lin-NAY-uh and LIN-ee-uh, so expect to correct people or to accept whichever one sticks.
- The spelling competes with Linnéa, Lynnea and Linnaea, and it is often heard as Linda, Leah or Lena over the phone.
- A child named Linnea will most likely be the only one in her school — good if you want that, worth knowing if she would rather blend in.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
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Linnea
Feminine · Swedish roots · #1443 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Linneas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 8,500 people named Linnea are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Linnea in 2025?
- Linnea ranks #1443 among US girl names in 2025, with 149 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Linnea?
- About 1 in every 10,787 US girls born in 2025 was named Linnea — 149 in all.
- Will my child share the name Linnea with classmates?
- Linnea will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Linnea
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Esmae#1443 · Lesly#1443 · Elysia#1443 · Journei#1443 · Evalynn#1443 · Monserrat#1443 · Rayleigh#1443 · Annette#1443
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Linnea? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Linnea and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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