Author
Jack Lin
Founder & Editor-in-Chief
Based in Taipei, Taiwan
Jack is a software engineer based in Taipei, Taiwan. He built NamesPop because the naming tools he found online all felt the same: slow, ad-heavy, and better at gathering SEO keywords than answering a parent's actual question.
He spends most of his writing time on trend analysis, data provenance, and the question of how software changes the small family decisions that used to happen in living rooms. Lately he has been thinking about how algorithms shape naming itself — what it means when a top-100 list starts to feel like a recommendation engine.
He lives with a rabbit named Money, which is where most of his pet-naming opinions come from.
2,387
Total pieces
131
Articles
1,085
Baby commentary
1,171
Pet commentary
Jack Lin's contributions
- Pet commentary
Star
Star ranks #256 with 440 entries and is a single-syllable nature-descriptor pet name with consistent visual logic — pet Stars almost always have a white star marking on the forehe…
- Pet commentary
Stevie
Stevie ranks #241 with 458 entries and is a gender-flexible musician-anchored pet name. The two dominant cultural figures — Stevie Nicks (born 1948) and Stevie Wonder (born 1950)…
- Pet commentary
Stitch
Stitch ranks at #365 with 336 entries, leaning male. This is one of the cleanest Disney-anchored pet names on the chart. Lilo & Stitch (2002, with the 2025 live-action remake re-e…
- Pet commentary
Suki
Suki ranks #346 with 346 entries and is one of the softest, most distinctively Japanese-coded female pet names on the chart. The name means liked or loved one in Japanese, and the…
- Pet commentary
Sydney
Sydney ranks at #388 with 319 entries, leaning female. The name has cycled through three distinct cultural registers over the past 40 years (surname-as-given-name, place-name for…
- Pet commentary
Tank
Tank ranks #318 with 368 entries and is one of the most physically literal male pet names on the chart. Owners pick it for size, build, and a particular kind of unbothered demeano…
- Pet commentary
Teddy
There is one breed in our dataset where Teddy is the most popular name, full stop, ahead of every other entry: Poodles . Teddy ranks #1 among Poodles in our NYC and Seattle data w…
- Pet commentary
Tito
Tito ranks #351 with 345 entries and is one of the warmest, most internationally-coded male pet names on the lower-mid chart. Two syllables, soft consonants, and a strong Latin re…
- Pet commentary
Toby
Toby has been a default British dog name since at least the 18th century — Punch and Judy puppet shows traditionally featured a small dog character named Toby, and the name attach…
- Pet commentary
Trixie
Trixie ranks at #176 with 585 entries, and the name has been working steadily as a small-female-pet name for almost a century. It is one of those names that almost never appears o…
- Pet commentary
Whiskey
Whiskey ranks #334 with 359 entries and is one of the most coat-color-and-attitude pet names on the chart. The name doubles as a description: warm amber-brown coats, a confident t…
- Pet commentary
Willow
Willow ranks #111 with 949 entries, and the name belongs squarely to the soft, naturalistic register that has dominated female pet naming for the past decade. Owners reach for Wil…
- Pet commentary
Xena
Xena ranks #244 with 457 entries and is one of the most directly TV-anchored pet names in the chart. Xena: Warrior Princess ran from 1995 to 2001 and gave the name its full meanin…
- Pet commentary
Yogi
Yogi ranks #235 with 462 entries and is one of the most cartoon-anchored pet names in the chart. Yogi Bear, the Hanna-Barbera character that debuted in 1958 and got his own series…
- Pet commentary
Yoshi
Yoshi ranks at #281 with 402 entries, and it is one of the cleanest video-game-anchored names on the chart. Nintendo's Yoshi (introduced 1990 in Super Mario World) gave the name i…
- Pet commentary
Yuki
Yuki ranks #340 with 355 entries and is one of the most distinctively Japanese-coded female pet names on the lower-mid chart. The name means snow in Japanese, and the visual logic…
- Pet commentary
Ziggy
Ziggy ranks #79 with 1,196 entries and is one of the few pet names that explicitly invites the owner to declare a personality before the dog has done anything. The name is bouncy…
- Articleanalysis
National Pet Week 2026: America Now Has 87 Million Dogs — Are We Running Out of Good Names?
With 87 million dogs in the US and growing, you'd expect name diversity to collapse. NamesPop data shows the opposite is happening — and Gen Z is why.
·9 min read
- Articleanalysis
Renegade, Tempos, and Longshots: What Racehorses Teach Us About Naming Pets
Golden Tempo won the 2026 Kentucky Derby. NamesPop pet data shows Rebel in 247 dogs, Renegade in 89. Here's what racehorse naming conventions can teach dog owners.
·9 min read
- Articleanalysis
Golden Tempo and the Art of the Horse Name: How Thoroughbred Naming Rules Work
Cherie DeVaux's Golden Tempo won the 2026 Kentucky Derby. The Jockey Club's 18-character rule says a lot about how humans name things — including pets.
·10 min read
How we work
Editorial policy →
Topic selection, verification, corrections.
How we gather data
Methodology →
Sources, processing pipeline, limitations.