Lynne
Feminine · “lake”
Lynne is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 61,957 girls against 458 boys since 1880.
Lynne is Lynn with a final e, and the word underneath both is Welsh for a lake. It is one of the shortest names in English to have three competing spellings, none of which changes the sound.
How old is the name Lynne?
Lynne first appears in US birth records in 1907 — 118 years ago. The typical Lynne alive today was born around 1955, making them about 70 years old. About 49,000 people named Lynne are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Lynne most popular?
Lynne peaked in 1951, reaching #144 nationally. Today it ranks #13208, 13,064 places below that high. See the whole 1951 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From llyn to Lynne
The story of Lynne
Llyn place names are scattered across Wales and the border counties, and families from them carried the word as a surname into England and then America, where surnames routinely became given names. That route gave the masculine Lynn. The feminine use came from a different direction entirely: the enormous mid-century popularity of Linda, Carolyn, Marilyn and Evelyn made the -lyn sound familiar, and Lynne was extracted from it. The e-spelling peaked in the mid-1960s.
Meaningscholars disagree
lake, pool
The usual account gives the Welsh llyn, 'lake', through place names and the surname built on them. Where the name is instead a clipping of Linda, Carolyn or Evelyn — which it very often is — it carries no meaning of its own, since those names end in the sound by coincidence rather than by descent.
How the name formed
- llyn
- Lynn
- Lynne
Related forms: Llyn · Lynn · Lyn
Pronouncing Lynne
LIN
One syllable. Lynne, Lynn and Lyn are homophones; the final e does no audible work at all.
Nicknames for Lynne
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
- 1907
- Most girls named
- 19602,458 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #144reached in 1951
- Change vs 2023
- −50.0%6 in 2025, from 12
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.
Lynne in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Llyn in Welsh — related form
- Lynn in English — spelling variant
- Lyn in English — spelling variant
Lynnes among us
people named Lynne are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 267,878 born in 2025 was named Lynne
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 Faye test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Lynne's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Faye climbed just as high around 1934, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Faye's path sketches the road Lynne is walking now.
Lynne 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
Lynne beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Lynne in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- One syllable that pairs cleanly with almost any surname or second name.
- It is the commonest middle name of its generation, which is a real and useful role.
- The Welsh meaning is concrete and easy to picture.
- Three spellings are equally established, so it must be spelled out every time.
- It is very short, and can be swallowed by a long surname.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
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Lynne
Feminine · #13208 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Lynnes are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 49,000 people named Lynne are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Lynne in 2025?
- Lynne ranks #13208 among US girl names in 2025, with 6 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Lynne?
- About 1 in every 267,878 US girls born in 2025 was named Lynne — 6 in all.
- Will my child share the name Lynne with classmates?
- Lynne will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Lynne
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 Lynne? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Lynne and another name?
See them side by side — full stats, history and a gentle verdict.
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Which one would you pick?
Your gut first, the numbers after — the split shows once you pick.
US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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