Linwood
Masculine · “lime-tree wood”
Linwood is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 12,776 boys against 5 girls since 1880.
Linwood is a wood of lime trees. Old English lind named the tree — the linden, whose soft pale timber was used for shields — and wudu was a wood, so the compound describes a specific kind of place. It is one of a whole set of -wood names that entered American use together and now sound like nothing else.
How old is the name Linwood?
Linwood was already in use when US birth records began in 1880 — it is at least 145 years old. The typical Linwood alive today was born around 1946, making them about 79 years old. About 6,000 people named Linwood are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Linwood most popular?
Linwood peaked in 1945, reaching #396 nationally. See the whole 1945 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From lind wudu to Linwood
The story of Linwood
American naming took a whole family of -wood surnames as first names in the nineteenth century — Linwood, Elwood, Harwood, Sherwood, Garwood, Ellwood — and they moved together, peaked together and faded together, which is why they now sound like a set rather than like individual names. Most came from English place names by way of families who had lived at them. Linwood also exists on the American map several times over, which gave it a second and more local claim. It goes to girls as well as boys, as place-derived names generally do.
Meaning
lime-tree wood
Old English lind is the linden or lime tree, and it turns up across English place names and personal names alike — the lind in Linda's Germanic ancestors is the same word, and shields were made of the timber, which is why Old English poetry calls a shield a lind. Wudu is a wood. The compound is transparent and not disputed. The tree is not the citrus lime; the two words are unrelated and only sound alike in modern English.
How the name formed
- lind wudu
- Linwood
Pronouncing Linwood
LIN-wood
LIN-wood, two syllables, stress at the front, both halves fully sounded. There is no reduction in the middle and no competing reading — a compound of two ordinary English words is about as unambiguous as a name gets.
Nicknames for Linwood
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
- 1880
- Most boys named
- 1949272 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #396reached in 1945
- Change vs 2021
- −25.0%12 in 2024, from 16
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.
Linwoods among us
people named Linwood are estimated to be alive in the US today
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
Questions parents actually ask
Fashion outlook
Linwood sits outside the current charts, and that is its own kind of answer: naming cycles can only date the names they carried up. A name this rare has no decade stamped on it — it cannot go out of fashion, because it was never in.
Based on 146 years of naming cycles. How we read them
The trade-off
- Both halves are plain English words, so the name explains itself to anyone who stops to look.
- Lin and Woody are both available and they sit in completely different registers.
- It goes to either child, which the -wood names generally do.
- The name is very strongly associated with the oldest living generations, and it has not come back the way some Victorian names have.
- Elwood, Linwood and Sherwood are close enough to be confused, and all three carry the same period.
- Two full syllables and eight letters is a lot of name before the surname starts.
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Linwood
Masculine
Frequently asked
- How many Linwoods are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 6,000 people named Linwood are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Linwood in 2025?
- Linwood is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 boy names.
- Will my child share the name Linwood with classmates?
- Linwood will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More L names
The most-given names starting with L, all years combined.
Larry#1084 · Lawrence#518 · Louis#249 · Logan#53 · Liam#1 · Lucas#10 · Luke#33 · Leonard#637
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Linwood? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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