Where the name comes from
By the clan's traditional account, the name was conferred rather than inherited. Prince Bi Gan, uncle and minister to Di Xin, the last Shang king, was executed for remonstrating with him; his pregnant wife fled into the forest and gave birth there. When King Wu of Zhou overthrew the Shang he sought the family out and gave the boy the name Lin — 林, "forest" — along with the dukedom of Boling, making him Lin Jian (林堅). English Wikipedia flags this section as disputed: it is genealogical tradition rather than documented history.
The same name, spelled differently
A Chinese surname is a character, not a spelling. The Latin letters on a passport come from whichever dialect the name was written down from — so these are all 林.
- LinMandarin — mainland China, Taiwan
- LamCantonese — Hong Kong and Guangdong
- LumCantonese
- LimHokkien and Teochew — including Chinese Filipino communities
- LiemChinese Indonesian communities, and via Dutch spelling
- Lim-Thai surnames built on the Hokkien reading, e.g. Limthongkul, Limjaroenrat
- LingEastern Min, Northern Min and Wu
The character
Outside a name, 林 is an ordinary word meaning woods.
- Strokes
- 8
- Radical
- 木
- As a word
- lín
Words built from 林
The character does ordinary work in the language too. Each of these is a real word you can look up.