Lynn

English

Alternative forms

• (female name): Lyn, Lynne

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /lɪn/
• Homophone: lin
• Rhymes: -ɪn

Proper noun

Lynn

1. (colloquial) A local name for King's Lynn, Norfolk, England.
   • c. 1591–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Third Part of Henry the Sixt, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene v]:

     King Edward. But whither shall we then?
     Hastings. To Lynn, my lord; and ship from thence to Flanders.

2. An English habitational surname from Welsh, from King's Lynn in Norfolk, from Welsh llyn (“lake”) or Old English lean (“reward”, implying land tenure).
3. A Scottish habitational surname from Scottish Gaelic, from Scottish Gaelic linne (“firth; pond, pool; waterfall”).
4. A surname from German, an anglicization of Lind.
5. A surname from Irish, a variant of Flynn.
6. A male given name transferred from the surname, usually used as a middle name.
7. A female given name transferred from the surname, popular as a middle name.
8. A female given name, variant of Lyn, popular as a middle name.
9. A number of places in the United States:
   1. A town in Winston County, Alabama.
   2. A town in Lawrence County, Arkansas.
   3. A former settlement in Alameda County, California; named for the city in Massachusetts.
   4. A town in Washington Township, Randolph County, Indiana.
   5. A city in Essex County, Massachusetts; named for King's Lynn, Norfolk.
   6. An unincorporated community in Morrill County, Nebraska.
   7. An unincorporated community in Box Elder County, Utah; named for founder John Lind.
   8. An unincorporated community in Mingo County, West Virginia.
   9. A town in Clark County, Wisconsin.
   10. A Virginia Beach; Lynnhaven section of Virginia Beach, VA.
   11. A number of townships in the United States, listed under Lynn Township.
10. A community in Colchester County, Nova Scotia, Canada.
11. A river in Ontario, flowing from the town of Simcoe into Lake Erie.

Quotations

• 1989, Ann Richards, Peter Knobler, Straight from the Heart: My Life in Politics and Other Places, Simon and Schuster, →ISBN, page 91:

  David's father's name was Leon, and those people who didn't call him Dick called him Lynn. And I loved my former professor Ralph Lynn, so I named my baby Lynn Cecile.

• 2007, Susan Richards Shreve, Warm Springs: Traces of a Childhood at FDR's Polio Haven, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, →ISBN, page 67:

  He called me Mary because I had told him my middle name was Mary and I was called by that name at home, although my middle name was Lynn. But neither Susan or Lynn seemed right for a Quaker girl converting to Catholicism.

Derived terms

• Lynn County

See also

• King's Lynn, Bishop's Lynn
• New Lynn
• South Lynn