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
Judson
Judson is the kind of surname-turned-given-name that feels both discovered and inevitable. Ranked #956 with a 2023 peak and 13,627 SSA records, it sits in that productive middle z…
- Baby commentary
Kallie
Kallie is a Greek-rooted name meaning beautiful, from kalos/kale , the Greek root for beauty and good, given a warm American presentation through its -ie ending. With 12,401 SSA r…
- Baby commentary
Kamiyah
Kamiyah is a name that sits at the intersection of African American naming creativity and Arabic etymological roots, a name that sounds and feels contemporary while drawing from a…
- Baby commentary
Kannon
Kannon is a name sitting at an unusual crossroads: it sounds like Cannon, functions phonetically like Cannon, but carries a Japanese Buddhist backstory that is entirely different…
- Baby commentary
Kaya
Kaya is one of those names that exists independently in at least four different cultural traditions, and that convergence isn't coincidence but evidence of something in the sound…
- Baby commentary
Khalid
Khalid is an Arabic name meaning "eternal" or "immortal" — and it carries that meaning with a weight that goes back to early Islamic history and forward through a Grammy-winning A…
- Baby commentary
Khaza
Khaza is a name of uncertain origin with an extremely specific pop-culture biography. Ranked #965 with a 2023 peak and just 1,632 SSA records, it exists almost entirely because of…
- Baby commentary
Kylee
Kylee is an Americanized spelling of Kylie, itself from Irish/Gaelic caol (meaning narrow) or possibly an Aboriginal Australian boomerang word, that peaked in 2008 and holds 50,02…
- Baby commentary
Kyren
Kyren peaked in 2024 — its current peak — sits at rank #812, and has 3,485 SSA records. A name still climbing is a name worth understanding clearly, because what you're choosing t…
- Baby commentary
Langston
Langston is a name that carries a specific cultural gravity most names can only dream of. Ranked #909 with a 2016 peak and 7,089 SSA records, it belongs to a category of names tha…
- Baby commentary
Leanna
Leanna is a soft, flowing name that blends the Lee- prefix with the -anna suffix, drawing on Hebrew roots while feeling distinctly American in its construction. SSA data shows 25,…
- Baby commentary
Legacy
Legacy is one of the most explicitly intentional names in American naming culture — a word name that declares its meaning without any translation needed. Ranked #954 with a 2021 p…
- Baby commentary
Leroy
Leroy peaked in 1924 and has 200,702 SSA records, a century of American use. At rank #862 today, it's genuinely on the fringes of the current naming conversation, but not extinct.…
- Baby commentary
Lettie
Lettie is a Victorian diminutive that has quietly been winning over parents who want something old but not obvious, a name that feels discovered rather than assigned. At rank 936…
- Baby commentary
Lilyana
Lilyana occupies a specific and appealing niche: it's the Slavic and Russian variant of Lilliana, carrying the lily flower's meaning with a softer, more exotic ending. SSA data sh…
- Baby commentary
Livia
Livia is a Roman name with imperial credentials: Livia Drusilla was the wife of Augustus Caesar and among the most politically powerful women in the early Roman Empire. It's been…
- Baby commentary
Loyal
Loyal peaked in 2022 and carries 5,705 SSA records. At rank #877, it's a virtue name with a very particular energy, not pious like Grace or Faith, not grand like Noble or Valor, b…
- Baby commentary
Lucien
Lucien is the French form of Lucian — and it wears that Frenchness gracefully, with a soft final-n that makes the whole name feel more fluid than its Latin-Roman ancestor. Ranked…
- Baby commentary
Luella
Luella peaked in 1918 and has 32,252 SSA records: a name with a genuinely Victorian pedigree that's been making a quiet return as parents discover that its three-syllable melody a…
- Baby commentary
Lyanna
Lyanna exists because of one source: George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire , and the HBO adaptation that made that source available to millions who never read the books. Wit…
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Editorial policy →
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How we gather data
Methodology →
Sources, processing pipeline, limitations.