Humanverse

Wendel vs Wendie

American parents have registered 2,200 Wendies since 1880, against 2,147 Wendels. But in 2025 it was Wendel that was commoner, 5 babies to fewer than five.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Wendel against Wendie, 1880 to 2025 0 25 50 75 100 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Wendel Wendie

Each line is every baby given the name that year, girls and boys added together — the only count that means the same thing for both names. A line breaks where the name fell below five babies in a year — the point at which the SSA stops publishing it — rather than being drawn through a figure nobody published. A single published year in a gap shows as a dot.

Who was ahead

Of the 109 years in which either name was published, Wendel for 66 years and Wendie for 43 years. The lead changed hands 14 times.

10 shorter spells of a year or two are folded into the spans above rather than listed separately.

Side by side

  Wendel Wendie
Total US births 2,1472,200
Most in one year 4589
Babies in 2025 5under 5
Estimated living today 1,2001,900
Median age today 5857
Peak year 19401970
Best rank 952nd boys1,247th girls
Rank in 2025 12,008thunranked
First recorded 19111938
Girls / boys 0 / 2,1472,200 / 0

A rank is a position within one sex’s list for one year, so the two rank rows are not subtracted from one another and the winning column is not marked on them. The living figure is a life-table estimate, not a count.

Where each one is strongest

How much commoner the name is in that state than it is nationally, from births recorded since 1910.

Both names abroad

Countries whose statistics office publishes both names, so the comparison can be made somewhere other than the United States.

Country Wendel Wendie
France 65305

Every spelling a country files separately is added together, over whatever years that country publishes — which is not the same range in any two of them, so read the columns against each other and not the rows.

Compare something else

Related comparisons

Social Security Administration birth records, 1880–2025, public domain. Full histories: Wendel and Wendie.