Glen
Feminine · “a narrow valley”
Glen is given to boys far more often — 125,706 boys against 1,348 girls since 1880. See Glen as a boy name
Glen with one n is the landscape word and Glenn with two is the surname. The Gaelic word for a narrow valley came into English unchanged and undoubled; the Scottish and Irish families who took their name from one wrote it with the extra letter, and the two spellings have been quietly marking that difference ever since.
How old is the name Glen?
Glen first appears in US birth records in 1884 — 141 years ago. The typical Glen alive today was born around 1936, making them about 89 years old. About 500 people named Glen are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Glen most popular?
Glen peaked in 1884, reaching #1024 nationally. See the whole 1884 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From A Gaelic word for a narrow valley to Glen
The story of Glen
The valleys the word names were emptied. Through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the population of the Highland glens was cleared off the land, first for sheep and later for deer, in a process that ran for well over a century and left the interior of a whole country empty of the people who had farmed it. What survived is the names. Every glen on the map still carries the name it had, and a great many of them now name nothing but a valley: the townships are foundations in the heather, the parishes were dissolved, and the people are in Nova Scotia and North Carolina. The word traveled with them, which is why it is a first name in America at all.
Meaning
a narrow valley
The Gaelic word means a valley of a particular shape: narrow, steep-sided and usually with a burn running through it. The reading is settled. Whether a given bearer's name descends from the word directly or from the surname built on it cannot be told from the certificate, and the doubling is the only clue there is.
How the name formed
- A Gaelic word for a narrow valley
- Borrowed into English without translation
- A surname taken from the landscape
- Glen as an American first name for both sexes
Related forms: Gleann · Gleann
Pronouncing Glen
GLEN
One syllable, and identical to the ordinary English word. The Gaelic original has a longer vowel and a doubled n on the page, neither of which survived the crossing into English.
Nicknames for Glen
Moderate
What the data says
146 years of official birth records
The long climb, and where it stands now
The same years in position rather than babies
- First recorded
- 1884
- Most girls named
- 192736 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1024reached in 1884
- Change vs 1984
- 0.0%5 in 1988, from 5
Rank is a position, a count is a headcount, and they move independently — a name can hold its rank while the number of babies behind it falls. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration.
Glen in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Gleann in Scottish Gaelic — related form
- Gleann in Irish — related form
Glens among us
people named Glen are estimated to be alive in the US today
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
Questions parents actually ask
Fashion outlook
Glen sits outside the current charts, and that is its own kind of answer: naming cycles can only date the names they carried up. A name this rare has no decade stamped on it — it cannot go out of fashion, because it was never in.
Based on 146 years of naming cycles. How we read them
The trade-off
- One syllable, no ambiguity, and nothing at all to teach anybody.
- The meaning is concrete and can be pointed at on any map of Scotland.
- It works on the register for either child, which the record confirms.
- The doubled spelling is commoner and this will be written that way.
- It is strongly associated with the middle of the twentieth century.
- The meaning is a landscape feature rather than a quality.
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Glen
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Glens are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 500 people named Glen are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Glen in 2025?
- Glen is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Glen with classmates?
- Glen will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More G names
The most-given names starting with G, all years combined.
Grace#38 · Gloria#654 · Gladys#3211 · Geraldine#2438 · Gail#8362 · Gertrude#6546 · Georgia#99 · Gina#2076
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Glen? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Glen and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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