Pronunciation (/ˈwɛndi/) Alternative spelling Wendi | Gender Female Meaning White, holy Related names | |
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Wendy is a given name generally given to females in English-speaking countries.
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The name is found in United States records from the 19th century; the name Wendy appeared over twenty times in the U.S. Census of 1880. In Britain, Wendy appeared as a name for both females and males in the 1881 census of England, and was occasionally used as a diminutive for the Welsh Gwendolyn. It was also used as a surname in Britain from at least the 17th century. However, its existence in Britain as a girl's name is owed to the character Wendy Darling from the 1904 play Peter Pan and its 1911 novelization Peter and Wendy by J. M. Barrie. Its popularity reached a peak in the 1960s but subsequently declined. 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".
The name Wendy is sometimes considered a variation of the (originally Polish) name Wanda.
The name Wendy in Dutch is either of Anglo-Saxon origin or an abbreviation of names such as Wendela (an old-fashioned name which probably means related to the Vandals).
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.