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
- Baby commentary
Perry
Perry is an Old English surname name meaning "dweller by the pear tree," from pyrige , the Old English word for pear tree. Ranked #1242 with a peak in 1959 and over 75,000 total S…
- Baby commentary
Ren
Ren is three letters that contain a world of meaning, depending entirely on which cultural tradition you're drawing from. Ranked #1145 with a peak in 2023 and 2,604 total SSA uses…
- Baby commentary
Renee
Renee is the French feminine of René — from the Latin renatus , meaning "born again." With 185,673 SSA records and a 1962 peak, it had a sustained American run as French-inflected…
- Baby commentary
Rylan
Rylan is a phonetic respelling of Ryland, an Old English place-name meaning "rye land" — farmland where rye was grown. As a girl's name it peaked in 2011, has about 6,400 SSA reco…
- Baby commentary
Sandra
Sandra has 875,334 SSA records — placing it among the most-used girl names in American history. A mid-century powerhouse that peaked in 1947, Sandra is now at rank 1045 and firmly…
- Baby commentary
Saoirse
Saoirse (SEER-sha) is a name that asks something of you before you can say it. The spelling and pronunciation diverge in that distinctly Irish way, and that gap is the entire poin…
- Baby commentary
Sariah
Sariah is a name with a fascinating dual identity: it appears in the Book of Mormon as the name of Lehi's wife, a prominent figure in Latter-day Saint scripture, and it also conne…
- Baby commentary
Sekani
Sekani is an African name with Malawian and Chichewa roots, meaning "laugh" or "laughter" — a joyful name from the Bantu language tradition of southern and central Africa. Ranked…
- Baby commentary
Shai
Shai is a Hebrew name meaning "gift" — from the Hebrew noun shai (שַׁי), a word for a present or offering given as an expression of honor. With 2,254 SSA records and a 2023 peak,…
- Baby commentary
Shia
Shia peaked in 2024 with 2,115 total uses — a Hebrew name meaning "gift of God" that carries both deep religious heritage and a very specific contemporary celebrity association. R…
- Baby commentary
Simeon
Simeon is Simon's older, more formal sibling. It is the direct Hebrew original behind a name that Western culture has been simplifying for two thousand years. Ranked #1142 with a…
- Baby commentary
Slade
Slade is an Old English surname meaning "valley" or "small dell" — from the word slæd , a shallow valley — that carries the rugged, one-syllable energy of Old English landscape na…
- Baby commentary
Stone
Stone is an Old English word-name — the common noun for one of the most elemental materials in human experience — used as a given name with 6,416 SSA records and a 1999 peak. It o…
- Baby commentary
Sunday
Sunday is a day name that carries weight disproportionate to its two syllables. Named for the sun — from Old English sunnandæg , "day of the sun" — it's been used as a given name…
- Baby commentary
Talon
Talon is an Old French word meaning "heel" — specifically the rear claw of a bird of prey — that entered American naming as a nature-meets-power name, peaking in 2006 with 12,319…
- Baby commentary
Tatiana
Tatiana has a theatrical sweep to it — four syllables that unspool like a sentence. With Latin roots through the Roman family name Tatius and a long life in Russian and Eastern Eu…
- Baby commentary
Terry
Terry has over 424,000 total registered uses and peaked in 1957 — one of the most-used names of the twentieth century that has now retreated so far from the charts that giving it…
- Baby commentary
Tiago
Tiago is the Portuguese form of James, and it carries centuries of Iberian sun in its two easy syllables. Ranked #1156 with its peak in 2022, the name is riding a wave of interest…
- Baby commentary
Toby
Toby is the English familiar form of Tobias — the Greek form of the Hebrew Toviyah (Tovia), meaning "God is good" or "Yahweh is good." With 34,607 SSA records and a 1975 peak, Tob…
- Baby commentary
Turner
Turner is an Old English occupational name — from the craftsman who worked a lathe, shaping wood and metal into smooth forms — that has been quietly climbing as parents gravitate…
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Editorial policy →
Topic selection, verification, corrections.
How we gather data
Methodology →
Sources, processing pipeline, limitations.