Gwendolen
Gwendolen reached its high-water mark in 1971 at number 2,296, and has been recorded 889 times in all. In 2025 it ranked 8,860th. About 750 Gwendolens are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 48.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Gwendolen
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 889
- Estimated living today
- 750
- Median age today
- 48
- Peak year
- 1971
- Best rank
- 2,296th
- Rank in 2025
- 8,860th
- First recorded
- 1903
How old the living Gwendolens are
born that year still alive today
Of the 889 babies given the name since 1903, about 750 are alive — 84 in every hundred. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1977 and half after.
An estimate, not a count. SSA births aged forward through SSA cohort life tables, which know nothing about who left the country or arrived in it — so for a name that mostly came to America rather than being born in it, this is a floor rather than a figure. Where you fall among living Americans.
Where the name comes from
Origin Welsh
From Welsh Gwendolen.
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Names of 1971
The most popular girls’ names the year Gwendolen peaked:
Gwendolen elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| England and Wales girls | Gwendolen | 110 | 2,392nd |
| Ireland girls | Gwendolen | 14 | 396th |
| France girls | Gwendolen | 10 | 4,289th |
Counts come from each country's own records and are not comparable with the US figures above, which cover different years and a different definition of a recorded name. Where a country writes the name several ways, the spellings are added together and the most common is shown. A row marked name registrations is counting something else: Portugal ranks each of a child's two given names separately, so a girl registered Maria Leonor is in both the Maria row and the Leonor row, and that figure is not a number of children.
Related names
Gwendolen against another name
Two names on one chart, with the year one overtook the other.
Try it on yourself
Source: US Social Security Administration, national and state baby-name files, 1880–2025. Counts include only births registered with the SSA, and names with fewer than five births in a year are not published. The living estimate applies SSA cohort life tables to those births; it counts people born in the United States, so it misses anyone who arrived later and anyone who has left.