Kenda
Feminine · “Old Norse dalr”
English place-name endings are a map of the Viking settlement. Dale, thwaite, by, thorpe, beck and gill are Norse words, and they appear exactly where the Danish and Norwegian armies took land in the ninth century. Kendal, the town behind this name, sits inside that zone.
How old is the name Kenda?
Kenda first appears in US birth records in 1941 — 84 years ago. The typical Kenda alive today was born around 1973, making them about 52 years old. About 2,300 people named Kenda are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Kenda most popular?
Kenda peaked in 1964, reaching #1229 nationally. Today it ranks #10107, 8,878 places below that high. See the whole 1964 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Kendal to Kenda
The story of Kenda
Draw a line across England from the Thames to the Mersey and the place names change. South of it the endings are English: ton, ham, ley, ford, worth. North and east of it they are Norse: Grimsby, Whitby and Selby take the Danish by, a farmstead; Braithwaite and Applethwaite take thwaite, a clearing; Scunthorpe and Grimsthorpe take thorp, an outlying farm; and the northern dales take dalr, a valley. That line is the boundary of the Danelaw, the territory ceded to the Norse armies in the late ninth century, and it is still legible on a modern road atlas eleven hundred years later. Kendal is the valley of the Kent, and the surname Kendall came from it, and the American names Kendra, Kendall and Kenda came from the surname.
Meaningscholars disagree
Old Norse dalr, the valley of the Kent
Kenda is a clipped American form in the Kendra and Kendall family. Kendal in Cumbria is the valley of the river Kent, with the Norse element dalr. Kendra itself is a twentieth-century formation of unsettled origin, possibly a blend. The peak is 1964.
How the name formed
- Kendal
- Kendall
- Kenda
Related forms: Kendra · Kendal
Pronouncing Kenda
KEN-duh
Two syllables, stress on the first. Kenda and Kendra differ by one consonant and are regularly confused.
Nicknames for Kenda
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
- 1941
- Most girls named
- 196372 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1229reached in 1964
- Change vs 2023
- −35.7%9 in 2025, from 14
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.
Kenda in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Kendra in English — related form
- Kendal in English — related form
Kendas among us
people named Kenda are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 178,585 born in 2025 was named Kenda
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 Merrill test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Kenda's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Merrill climbed just as high around 1942, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Merrill's path sketches the road Kenda is walking now.
Kenda 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
Kenda beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Kenda in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Five letters and two syllables, spelled as heard.
- Ken works as a short form with no explanation needed.
- It is rarer than Kendra while sitting in the same family.
- Kendra is far more common and will be written instead.
- The 1964 peak dates it to the mid-century.
- It reads as a clipped form rather than a full name.
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What they receive
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Kenda
Feminine · #10107 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Kendas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 2,300 people named Kenda are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Kenda in 2025?
- Kenda ranks #10107 among US girl names in 2025, with 9 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Kenda?
- About 1 in every 178,585 US girls born in 2025 was named Kenda — 9 in all.
- Will my child share the name Kenda with classmates?
- Kenda will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Kenda
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Berta#10107 · Jettie#10107 · Maye#10107 · Osa#10107 · Fidelia#10107 · Alysa#10107 · Su#10107 · Willie#10107
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Kenda? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Kenda and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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