Wendy

Wendy is a given name generally given to girls in English-speaking countries.

Wendy
Wendy Darling drawn by Oliver Herford in The Peter Pan Alphabet
Pronunciation(/ˈwɛndi/)
GenderFemale
Language(s)English
Origin
MeaningWelsh-white, holy Germanic-to wander, change, the Vandals
Other names
Alternative spellingWendi
Related namesGwendolyn, Gwen, Wendeline, Wendelinda, Winifred

In Britain, Wendy appeared as a masculine name in a parish record in 1615.[1][2] It was also used as a surname in Britain from at least the 17th century.[3] Its popularity in Britain as a feminine name is owed to the character Wendy Darling from the 1904 play Peter Pan and its 1911 novelisation Peter and Wendy by J. M. Barrie.[4][5][6] Its popularity reached a peak in the 1960s, and subsequently declined.[7] The name was inspired by young Margaret Henley, daughter of Barrie's poet friend W. E. Henley. With the common childhood difficulty pronouncing Rs, Margaret reportedly used to call him "my fwiendy-wendy".[8][9]

Chinese women with the same or similar-sounding characters as their given names often anglicise their names as Wendi or Wendy (e.g. Wendi Deng, Wendy Kweh).

In Germany after 1986 the name Wendy became popular because it is the name of a magazine (targeted specifically at young girls) about horses and horse riding.

People

Business and politics

  • Wendy Davis, politician
  • Wendi Deng, Chinese-born American businesswoman
  • Wendy Thomas (born 1961), daughter of fast food chain Wendy's founder Dave Thomas and the company's namesake

Film, theatre, television, and radio

Sports

Arts

Science and engineering

Other

Fictional characters

References

  1. ""Made-Up" Names". Dictionary of Medieval Names from European Sources. 2015-04-15. Retrieved 2019-07-28.
  2. "Captain Wendy Oxford, Captain". geni_family_tree. Retrieved 2019-07-28.
  3. James Heath, John Phillips (1675). A Chronicle of the Late Intestine War in the Three Kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland (2nd ed.). London: J.C. for Thomas Basset. p. 480.
  4. Was the name Wendy invented for the book Peter Pan? at The Straight Dope
  5. Patrick Hanks and Flavia Hodges, Dictionary of First Names, 1990
  6. "Before this, the name simply didn't exist! The History of the name "Wendy"". Archived from the original on June 27, 2001.
  7. http://www.babynames.co.uk/names/wendy/
  8. "The History of Wendy". Archived from the original on 2009-03-18. Retrieved 2009-07-25.
  9. Winn, Christopher (2005). I Never Knew That About England. Ebury Press. p. 4. ISBN 9780091902070.
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