The name Lemkin was probably a corruption of two separate names, Lem and Kin. Lem in Chinese would be the surname, and it can be written in many ways, like Lim, Lam, Lum in Cantonese and Lin in Mandarin. It means forest. The second name Kin was probably his personal name. Without the Chinese character it is difficult to accurately ascertain its meaning, but many men have a similar sound name which means 'robust'.