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In 1960-1970, there is a restriction in Indonesia to change your Chinese name to Indonesian name.
When our dad chose the name LINAN as our family name (surname), I'm sure there is no specific reason behind it only because it is a match to our Chinese family name: LIN.

When I was still in Indonesia, this name doesn't seem to be a known or regular family name. Looks like it is only used by our family. But when I came to the United States, I found that many other people have LINAN as their family name, mostly from the Spanish or Mexican root. Even in the small city of Toledo, Ohio, I found one listing in the phone book. And then now, I found 576 thousand hits if I googled LINAN on the web.

One day, a colleague from China, just out of curiosity, did a search and found information in the Chinese history on this name. From there I did more research to find out anything related to this name and below is what I found.

Enjoy the journey to the LINAN's originality. I trully believe that this information does not have anything to do with our family name but, hey... it's better than have nothing to tell. Right??? Hahaha.....!

The meaning of LINAN

There are two meanings for LINAN: from Mandarin (Chinese) and from Spanish.

• In Spanish >>> Liñán: possibly a variant spelling of Catalan Llinyà. However this name is found mainly in the Basque Country.
   

• In Mandarin  >>> LinAn (臨安) means 'temporary safety'. The name was given by Emperor Gaozong, the first emperor of southern Song Dynasty south of the Huai River. He did it when he moved the capital of southern Song Dynasty to the city of Hangzhou (杭州) in 1135. At that time, he changed the city name from Hangzhou to LinAn.
   

The following names have been determined to sound like the name LINAN. This has been determined using an analysis of these names using phonetics. Many of our ancestors' names' spellings changed when they immigrated into a new country, especially when there was a language barrier.

LANNAN | LANNEN | LANNON | LANYON | LEGNON | LEHNEN | LEINEN | LEJNEN | LENAIN | LENANE | LENIN | LENNON | LENON | LINAN | LINEEN | LINEN | LINNANE | LINNEEN | LINNEN | Linnon | LONIEN | LONON | LUNAN | LUNIN | LUNNON |
 

Some facts about the name LINAN

1. LINAN is the 40,086th most popular last name (surname) in the United States.

2. According to www.ancestry.com, LINAN was found in the following databases:

2,654 data in Historical Newspapers
3,567 data in U.S. Records Collection
180 data in U.S. Immigration Collection
852 data in U.S. Census Images and Indexes

3. According to landing.ancestry.com, LINAN was found in the following databases:

717 data in U.S. Federal Census Records (1790-1930)
1010 data in Birth, Marriage & Death Records
360070 data in Historical Newspapers (1700's-2001). Includes 5 million pages from over 200 different newspapers across the US, UK and Canada.

4. LINAN Family Crest, which was first found in county Galway where they held a family seat from ancient times:

5. If you look for LINAN in Yahoo! and Google, you will get:

• 234.000 hits in Yahoo! Search

• 596.000 hits in Google Search

6. Spelling variations of the name LINAN include: Lennon, Lannin, Lannon, Linnane, O'Lennon, Lennane, Leonard, MacAlinion, O'Lennan and many more. Some of the first settlers in U.S. of this name or some of its variants were: Richard Lennon, who settled in the Barbados with his wife and servants in 1680; William Lennon, who settled in Virginia in 1635; and Charles, Edward, John, Patrick, Robert Lennon, who all arrived in Philadelphia between 1840 and 1860.

7. LINAN (LinAn  (臨安) ) is the name of a city that lies to the South of Tianmu Mountain, which is in the Northwest of Zhejiang province. Lying east to Hangzhou and west to Yellow Mountain, LinAn is the key door between Zhejiang province and Anhui province. She is also the trade centre between the two provinces. She is the only one mountain area city within Changjiang delta. LinAn has an area of 3,126.8 square km, a population of 500,000 and the jurisdictional area including 15 towns and 24 villages.

In 1986 the State Council authorizes it as the coastal developing economical city. Rich natural resources, abundant rainfall, warm climate, all of these make its percentage of forest cover up to 71.3%. It has such an advantageous ecological situation that it breeds more than 4,700 biological species. Tianmu Mountain has a reputation of 'species gene treasure store'.

Mountains, lakes, forest, hot spring, corrosion caves, Buddhist temple and other ancient remains make LinAn be a great place of green treasure ground shining in Changjiang delta. Since ancient time, LinAn ten scenes, Tangchang ten scenes and Yuqian eight scenes have been famous. Tourist scenes are scattered from west to east, within several hundred kilometers. They are Longtang Mountain, Daming Mountain and Rijing Cave, Tuanko Hotspring, Tianmu Mountain and Yuewang Hill, Linglong Hill, Tomb of King Qian, Qingshan Lake and Dongxiao Cave. People have been longing for the Peach Garden since Tao yuanming of the Jin dynasty. Baishai Stream Scenic Resort, called 'Peach Garden in dream and Shangri-la in the world', undoubtedly brings a lovely surprise to tourists from Shanghai, Ningbo, Suzhou and Hangzhou.

How about the meaning of FINA ????