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
Ryland
Ryland peaked in 2013, ranks #729, and has 12,781 SSA bearers. It's a surname turned given name with an agricultural English origin, and it arrived in the American naming mainstre…
- Baby commentary
Seraphina
Seraphina is one of the most dramatically beautiful names on the current American charts — five syllables, rooted in Hebrew angelology, currently ranked 778 with 3,602 SSA records…
- Baby commentary
Stormi
Stormi is a name that arrived in American awareness in February 2018, when Kylie Jenner announced that her daughter's name was Stormi Webster. It's now ranked 790 with 3,889 SSA r…
- Baby commentary
Teo
Teo peaked in 2024, ranks #759, and has just 2,668 SSA records — which tells you this name is at the very beginning of its American story. Short, vowel-forward, and instantly pron…
- Baby commentary
Trey
Trey peaked in 1999, ranks #789, and has 40,196 SSA records. It's a Middle English name derived from the word for "three" — originally a nickname for a third-born son or a man nam…
- Baby commentary
Valentin
Valentin peaked in 2007, ranks #747, and has 11,304 SSA bearers. It's the European continental form of Valentine, used across France, Spain, Eastern Europe, and Latin America,and…
- Baby commentary
Valery
Valery is the French masculine spelling applied to girls in American use — a name that sits between the well-established Valerie and the more explicitly feminine Valeria, currentl…
- Baby commentary
Wes
Wes peaked in 2024, ranks #744, and has 6,408 SSA bearers. It's a name that functions both as a standalone given name and as the natural short form of Wesley or Weston: and parent…
- Baby commentary
Westin
Westin peaked in 2023, ranks #726, and has 7,015 SSA bearers. It's an elaborated form of the directional name Weston, adding an -in suffix that gives it a slightly more contempora…
- Baby commentary
Westyn
Westyn peaked in 2024, ranks #786, and has 2,741 SSA records. It's a phonetic respelling of Weston — itself a classic Old English place name — with the -yn ending that has become…
- Baby commentary
Zaylee
Zaylee is a name with an unknown formal etymology — one of those American invented names that emerged from the combination of fashionable sounds rather than a traceable linguistic…
- Baby commentary
Zeke
Zeke peaked in 2022, ranks #732, and has 8,055 SSA bearers. It's the short form of Ezekiel, one of the Hebrew Bible's major prophets,registered as a standalone given name by paren…
- Pet commentary
Aggie
Aggie appears 65 times at rank 1583 on female pets. It's a warm diminutive of Agnes or Agatha that reads as vintage without feeling dusty: the kind of name owners who love old-fas…
- Pet commentary
Anakin
Anakin appears 74 times at rank 1441 on male pets — a Star Wars name applied by owners who are either committed franchise fans or simply found the sound too good to leave in a gal…
- Pet commentary
Anubis
Anubis appears 66 times at rank 1568 on male pets. The Egyptian god of the dead has a striking visual form: jackal-headed, black-furred, the guardian of the underworld. Owners who…
- Pet commentary
Aria
Aria appears 73 times at rank 1456 on female pets — a name driven by Game of Thrones , Pretty Little Liars , and the musical term's inherent elegance. It's one of the cleaner cros…
- Pet commentary
Astrid
Astrid is a name that sounds like it was designed for a large, noble dog — and the registry data backs this up. Seventy-two records at rank 1,470, female-leaning, concentrated on…
- Pet commentary
Bambam
Bambam registers 75 times at rank 1432 on male pets — a name directly borrowed from The Flintstones' youngest character, applied to dogs by owners who either grew up with the cart…
- Pet commentary
Bea
Bea appears 68 times at rank 1,526 — three letters, one syllable, entirely no-nonsense. It's the kind of name that doesn't try to be charming but ends up being charming anyway, wh…
- Pet commentary
Berkeley
Berkeley appears 65 times at rank 1586 on neutral-gender pets — a place name that has drifted into pet naming, almost certainly through the Bay Area university city's cultural cac…
How we work
Editorial policy →
Topic selection, verification, corrections.
How we gather data
Methodology →
Sources, processing pipeline, limitations.