Q:

Was the word 麟 simplified? 

麟 is a very complicated word, and the word is in my name.  麟 is a simplified word, but it seems like it didn't even get simplified.  Some similar words are: 鳞,磷,璘,嶙,粼,膦,遴,潾 etc.  Why are all these word so complicated?  Any help is appreciated. 

A:

麟 (lin2) literally means female unicorn-like animal, which is an auspicious mythical Chinese animal and is the product of Chinese dragon and cow.  麟 is actually a very good and meaningful Chinese name.  It is not that complicated if we decompose the character: 
麟 (lin2) is a typical Phono-semantic compound (形聲): semantic 鹿 (lu4, meaning “deer”) + phonetic 粦 (lin2)
As for your question, 麟 was not simplified.  Please note that not every traditional Chinese characters were simplified. 
Quote from Wiki:
" Simplified character forms were created by decreasing the number of strokes and simplifying the forms of a sizable proportion of traditional Chinese characters.  Some simplifications were based on popular cursive forms embodying graphic or phonetic simplifications of the traditional forms.  Some characters were simplified by applying regular rules, for example, by replacing all occurrences of a certain component with a simplified version of the component.  Variant characters with the same pronunciation and identical meaning were reduced to one single standardized character, usually the simplest amongst all variants in form.  Finally, many characters were left untouched by simplification, and are thus identical between the traditional and simplified Chinese orthographies." 
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simplified_Chinese_characters

