Glendon
Masculine · “valley fort”
Glendon is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 4,695 boys against 64 girls since 1880.
Glen is one of a handful of Gaelic words English took whole. Bog, whisky, slogan, brogue, galore and glen all crossed from Irish or Scottish Gaelic into general English, which is a small return for a thousand years of contact.
How old is the name Glendon?
Glendon first appears in US birth records in 1904 — 121 years ago. The typical Glendon alive today was born around 1947, making them about 78 years old. About 2,400 people named Glendon are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Glendon most popular?
Glendon peaked in 1933, reaching #624 nationally. Today it ranks #6803, 6,179 places below that high. See the whole 1933 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From gleann to Glendon
The story of Glendon
English borrowed remarkably little vocabulary from the Celtic languages despite centuries of proximity, and what it did borrow is mostly landscape and drink: glen, bog, crag, cairn, loch, whisky. Glen entered English as a word and then as a name, and it became an extremely popular American men's name in the middle of the twentieth century. Glendon extends it with a -don ending, which may be the Gaelic dun or the English one or simply a suffix, and the name's American record peaks in 1933, ahead of Glen's own peak; extended forms usually follow, so this one is unusual.
Meaningscholars disagree
valley fort, or valley hill
Gaelic gleann, a narrow valley, gives English glen. The second element of Glendon is variously read as dun, a fort, or as the English -don from dun, a hill; both are proposed and neither is settled. The name may also be a modern American construction from Glen plus an ending, in which case it has no compound meaning at all.
How the name formed
- gleann
- glen
- Glendon
Related forms: Gleann · Glendan · Gleann
Pronouncing Glendon
GLEN-dun
Two syllables with the stress on the first and the second reduced. The Gaelic gleann has a longer first vowel than the English glen.
Nicknames for Glendon
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
- 1904
- Most boys named
- 192896 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #624reached in 1933
- Change vs 2023
- −7.7%12 in 2025, from 13
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.
Glendon in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Gleann in Scottish Gaelic — related form
- Glendan in English — spelling variant
- Gleann in Irish — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: Pennsylvania.
Glendons among us
people named Glendon are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 142,340 born in 2025 was named Glendon
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 Collins test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Glendon's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Collins climbed just as high around 1900, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Collins's path sketches the road Glendon is walking now.
Glendon 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
Glendon beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Glendon in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- A genuine Gaelic word behind the first element, borrowed whole into English.
- Glen and Don are two complete names available inside it.
- Seven letters and no pronunciation ambiguity.
- Glenn and Glen are both far more common.
- The second element is not securely explained.
- It reads as a name of the 1930s and 1940s in American ears.
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Glendon
Masculine · #6803 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Glendons are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 2,400 people named Glendon are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Glendon in 2025?
- Glendon ranks #6803 among US boy names in 2025, with 12 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Glendon?
- About 1 in every 142,340 US boys born in 2025 was named Glendon — 12 in all.
- Will my child share the name Glendon with classmates?
- Glendon will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Glendon
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Zeb#6803 · Buster#6803 · Fabien#6803 · Eston#6803 · Tyjuan#6803 · Fuad#6803 · Aaiden#6803 · Sanford#6803
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Glendon? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Glendon and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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