aufey Lín Bing Jónsdóttir[3][4][5][6] was born on 23 April 1999[7] in Reykjavík, Iceland. Her father is from Iceland[8] and her mother is from Guangzhou, China.[9][10] Her mother is a classical violinist and is the daughter of Lin Yaoji, a violin educator at the Central Conservatory of Music in China, which Laufey credits as inspiring her love of music.[11][12] Her father is a finance executive.[13] She has an identical twin sister, Júnía Lín Hua Jónsdóttir (Icelandic: [ˈjuːnia ˈliːn ˈxʷaː ˈjounsˌtouhtɪr̥]; Chinese: 林华; pinyin: Lín Huá), who is a violinist and serves as her creative director.[14][15]
She and her family lived in Washington, D.C., for two years and then moved back to Reykjavík in 2008, where she studied at Álftamýrarskóli.[16] Laufey started learning the piano at age four and the cello at age eight. She grew up doing ballet and figure skating.[17] Laufey speaks Icelandic, English, and Mandarin Chinese, which was the first language she learned.[18] She also learned to read Danish after studying it for seven years.[17] She graduated from the Reykjavík College of Music, where she also studied singing, in 2018.[19] She spent her childhood moving between Reykjavík and Washington, D.C., as well as visiting Beijing.[20]
At age 15, Laufey performed as a cello soloist with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra.[21] While in Iceland, she participated in the 2014 edition of Ísland Got Talent—the Icelandic version of Got Talent—where she ended as a finalist. In 2015 she also appeared as a contestant on The Voice Iceland and reached the semifinals. At the time, she was the youngest competitor in the series’ history.[22]
After high school, Laufey and her sister were both accepted by the University of St Andrews in Scotland, and she intended to study economics. Her sister graduated from St Andrews with a degree in international relations,[23][24] while Laufey attended Berklee College of Music instead after receiving a presidential scholarship. There, she studied cello with Mike Block and graduated in 2021.[25] As of October 2023, she resided in Los Angeles.[26]