Wendy
Feminine
Wendy is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 262,325 girls against 951 boys since 1880. See Wendy as a boy name
Wendy is one of the very few names that a single book pushed into common use, and it has since done something rarer still: it has become an ordinary English word for a thing, and the brand name of a restaurant chain, and it did both without anybody planning it.
How old is the name Wendy?
Wendy first appears in US birth records in 1918 — 107 years ago. The typical Wendy alive today was born around 1969, making them about 56 years old. About 239,000 people named Wendy are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Wendy most popular?
Wendy peaked in 1970, reaching #28 nationally. Today it ranks #1341, 1,313 places below that high. See the whole 1970 chart.
Where it comes from
From A play stages a house built around a sleeping girl called Wendy to Wendy
The story of Wendy
The name has produced a common noun. In the play, the boys build a small house around Wendy where she has fallen asleep, and the phrase Wendy house passed out of the theater into the language: in Britain, Ireland, Australia and South Africa it is simply what a child's playhouse is called, in catalogs and school inventories as well as in speech, and a great many people use it without knowing there was ever a girl. The second afterlife is American. A restaurant chain founded in the late sixties was named after the founder's young daughter, whose actual name was Melinda Lou — her brothers and sisters could not manage it and called her something closer to Wendy, and the nickname went onto a sign and then onto several thousand of them.
Meaningnot established
Not established
The name has no derivation in the ordinary sense. It may have been reachable as a familiar form of a Welsh name before the play that made it famous, and some nineteenth-century records suggest it was, but no unbroken line connects those to modern use. The explanation the author's circle gave — a small child's attempt at a friendly word — is an anecdote rather than an etymology. What can be said is that the name was not built from meaningful elements, so any translation offered for it has been supplied after the fact.
How the name formed
- A play stages a house built around a sleeping girl called Wendy
- Wendy house enters British English as the ordinary word for a playhouse
- The name becomes common across the English-speaking world
- A hamburger chain is named after a founder's daughter in the late sixties
Related forms: Wendi · Wendie · Gwendolen
Pronouncing Wendy
WEN-dee
Two syllables with the stress on the first. There is no ambiguity anywhere in it — the name is spelled as it sounds and sounds as it is spelled, which is part of why it spread so quickly once it existed.
Nicknames for Wendy
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
- 1918
- Most girls named
- 196711,223 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #28reached in 1970
- Change vs 2023
- −6.3%165 in 2025, from 176
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.
Wendy in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Wendi in English — spelling variant
- Wendie in English — spelling variant
- Gwendolen in Welsh — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, New York.
Wendys among us
people named Wendy are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 9,741 born in 2025 was named Wendy
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 Ann test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Wendy's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Ann climbed just as high around 1936, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Ann's path sketches the road Wendy is walking now.
Wendy 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
Where Wendy is headed
Wendy should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
Medium confidence — fitted on official counts through 2025.
A damped-trend projection of the official birth data — a sketch of momentum, not a promise. Every name's forecast, ranked.
Wendy beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Wendy in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Universally recognized, universally pronounceable and impossible to misspell by ear
- Warm and friendly in register without being childish
- A clear, tellable story behind it, which most invented names do not have
- The restaurant association is immediate in America and will follow the child through school.
- The name is closely tied to one generation in Britain and America and has not yet come back around.
- It is recorded for a small number of sons, though nearly every child given it is a daughter.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
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Wendy
Feminine · #1341 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Wendys are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 239,000 people named Wendy are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Wendy in 2025?
- Wendy ranks #1341 among US girl names in 2025, with 165 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Wendy?
- About 1 in every 9,741 US girls born in 2025 was named Wendy — 165 in all.
- Will my child share the name Wendy with classmates?
- Wendy will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Wendy
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Magdalene#1341 · Anita#1341 · Samadhi#1341 · Liya#1341 · Livvy#1341 · Adalina#1341 · Zaliyah#1339 · Rebeca#1339
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Wendy? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Wendy and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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