Glenda
Feminine · “pure and good”
Glenda is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 109,227 girls against 295 boys since 1880.
Glenda is a modern Welsh name — modern in the strict sense, coined in the twentieth century out of two ordinary Welsh words rather than inherited from anywhere.
How old is the name Glenda?
Glenda first appears in US birth records in 1900 — 125 years ago. The typical Glenda alive today was born around 1953, making them about 72 years old. About 79,500 people named Glenda are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Glenda most popular?
Glenda peaked in 1944, reaching #79 nationally. Today it ranks #5917, 5,838 places below that high. See the whole 1944 chart.
Glenda appears on these lists:
Where it comes from
From glân + da to Glenda
The story of Glenda
Wales produced a small wave of new names in the first half of the twentieth century, built from native words rather than borrowed from English — a deliberate turn during a period of renewed interest in the Welsh language. Glenda belongs to that group, alongside names like Ceri and Eirlys. It spread beyond Wales through the English-speaking world and reached the American top eighty in the 1940s, at which point most bearers had no Welsh connection at all.
Meaningscholars disagree
pure and good
The usual reading takes it from the Welsh glân, 'pure' or 'clean', and da, 'good'. That is how the name is understood in Wales, and both words are ordinary Welsh. The difficulty is that the compound is not attested before the name itself, so the reading may be a description of a coinage rather than the reason for it — and some accounts treat it instead as a feminine formed from Glenn.
How the name formed
- glân + da
- Glenda
Related forms: Glenda · Glennda
Pronouncing Glenda
GLEN-duh
Two syllables, stress on the first. Welsh and English say it the same way.
Nicknames for Glenda
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
- 1900
- Most girls named
- 19504,215 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #79reached in 1944
- Change vs 2023
- −13.0%20 in 2025, from 23
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.
Glenda in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Glenda in Welsh — same name
- Glennda in English — spelling variant
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas, California.
Glendas among us
people named Glenda are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 80,363 born in 2025 was named Glenda
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Billie test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Glenda's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Billie climbed just as high around 1929, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Billie's path sketches the road Glenda is walking now.
Glenda sits in the calm middle of the cycle — neither chasing a wave nor sliding off one. Middle-of-the-cycle names age slowly and predictably.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Glenda beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Glenda in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- A genuine Welsh name with a documented twentieth-century origin, which is unusually clear provenance.
- Two firm syllables and no pronunciation ambiguity in English.
- It is uncommon now without being invented on the spot.
- The 'pure and good' reading is how the name is understood rather than a documented derivation.
- It is closely associated with the middle of the twentieth century.
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What they receive
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Glenda
Feminine · #5917 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Glendas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 79,500 people named Glenda are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Glenda in 2025?
- Glenda ranks #5917 among US girl names in 2025, with 20 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Glenda?
- About 1 in every 80,363 US girls born in 2025 was named Glenda — 20 in all.
- Will my child share the name Glenda with classmates?
- Glenda will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Glenda
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Elda#5917 · Saloma#5917 · Fawn#5917 · Sarafina#5917 · Jaymie#5917 · Jania#5917 · Kimberlynn#5917 · Patsy#5917
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Glenda? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Glenda and another name?
See them side by side — full stats, history and a gentle verdict.
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Which one would you pick?
Your gut first, the numbers after — the split shows once you pick.
US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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