Wenona
Feminine · “First-born daughter”
Winona is a Dakota word for a first-born daughter, and it was not a name in the way English uses names: it was a position. Dakota birth-order terms were used for the first several children of each sex, so a family might have a Winona and a Chaska without either of them having chosen anything.
How old is the name Wenona?
Wenona first appears in US birth records in 1907 — 118 years ago. The typical Wenona alive today was born around 1960, making them about 65 years old. About 700 people named Wenona are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Wenona most popular?
Wenona peaked in 1921, reaching #1298 nationally. See the whole 1921 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Winuna to Wenona
The story of Wenona
The word reached English-speaking America through a poem. Longfellow's Hiawatha put a Wenonah in it as the hero's mother, drawing on Schoolcraft's collections of Ojibwe material while borrowing the meter from a Finnish epic and the name from Dakota, so that the poem mixes at least three unrelated traditions and presents the result as one. It was enormously popular, was recited in schools for a century, and put a good many words into English-speaking use with meanings and associations it had invented for them. A town in Minnesota, a lake and several thousand American girls carry this one.
Meaning
First-born daughter
Dakota winuna, the term for a family's first daughter. English speakers took it as a personal name, which is a change of category rather than a translation: the word identified a place in a family and was replaced or supplemented by other names as a person grew. Using it as a fixed given name is an American adaptation.
How the name formed
- Winuna
- Winona
- Wenona
Pronouncing Wenona
wi-NOH-nuh
Three syllables with the stress in the middle. The Dakota original has a different vowel in the first syllable, which this spelling with an e is arguably closer to than the standard one with an i.
Nicknames for Wenona
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
- 1907
- Most girls named
- 197651 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1298reached in 1921
- Change vs 2018
- 0.0%5 in 2023, 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.
Wenonas among us
people named Wenona 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
Wenona 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
- The meaning is concrete and specific in a way very few names are.
- Nona and Winnie are two short forms with nothing in common.
- The rhythm is easy and every sound is available to an English speaker.
- Winona is the standard spelling by a wide margin and will be written instead.
- The word names a family position rather than a person, which is worth knowing before explaining it.
- Taking a word from a living language as a name raises questions some families will want to think about.
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Wenona
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Wenonas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 700 people named Wenona are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Wenona in 2025?
- Wenona is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Wenona with classmates?
- Wenona will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More W names
The most-given names starting with W, all years combined.
Wanda#5917 · Wendy#1341 · Willie#10107 · Wilma#3645 · Whitney#1043 · Willow#44 · Winifred#922 · Willa#422
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Wenona? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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