Brenda
given name · Latin script
Meaning: Modern name, probably from a masculine Norse name related to brandr 'sword' or 'firebrand'
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Brenda is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country. In Singapore it is the 40th most common given name.
- IEIreland≈1 in 426(inferred from the name graph)
- CNChina≈1 in 450
- SGSingapore≈1 in 509
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- China (inferred from the name graph)
- #213 (measured from records)
- 5 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 604 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 406 (inferred from the name graph)
≈3,100,000 people, est.
of 15M given names
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Guatemala, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
Modern name, probably from a masculine Norse name related to brandr 'sword' or 'firebrand'.
Sources 1
- Le grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Brenda counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.
Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CN China | — | ≈3,100,000 est. | ≈1 in 450 | — | Brenda | 41 |
| US United States | #91 | 521,400 | 1 in 638 | 521K | Brenda | 604 |
| BR Brazil | — | 151,767 | 1 in 1.4K | 152K | — | 8 |
| GB United Kingdom | #106 | ≈120,000 est. | ≈1 in 530 | — | Brenda | 271 |
| CA Canada | #80 | ≈74,000 est. | ≈1 in 510 | 4 | Brenda | 302 |
| GT Guatemala | — | ≈42,000 est. | ≈1 in 406 | 146K | — | 2 |
| SG Singapore | #40 | ≈12,000 est. | ≈1 in 509 | — | Brenda | 101 |
| IE Ireland | #65 | ≈12,000 est. | ≈1 in 426 | — | Brenda | 116 |
Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.
Registers cited: Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror); Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender; RENAP — annual births. Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).
Other recorded senses(measured from records)
Brenda is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In Irish, Thought of in Ireland as a feminine form of Brendan, though unconnected; may mean ‘sword’.
as a nameIrish first names
In French, Etymology debated; often given as the feminine of Brendan, of likely Scandinavian or Scottish origin.
as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
2 A very popular name, of uncertain derivation. Until the 20th century it was confined mainly to Scotland and Ireland. It is probably of Scandinavian rather than Celtic origin, however: a short form of any of the various compound names derived from Old Norse brand ‘sword’. Its popularity in Gaelicspeaking countries has no doubt been influenced by its similarity to Brendan. BRENT
as a nameA concise dictionary of first names
In Spanish, Probable femenino de Brand 'espada'; difundido en inglés por la novela de Walter Scott.
as a nameDiccionario etimológico de nombres propios
In German, weibl. Vom. schottischer/irischer
as a nameDUDEN Lexikon der Vornamen
Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Brenda de Banzieb. 1909GBEnglish actress (1909-1981)
- Brenda Vaccarob. 1939USAmerican actress
- Brenda Leeb. 1944USAmerican singer and recording artist (born 1944)
- Brenda Frickerb. 1945IEIrish actress (1945–2026)
- Brenda Blethynb. 1946GBBritish actress
- Brenda Strongb. 1960USAmerican actress (born 1960)
- Brenda Chapmanb. 1962USAmerican animator, storyboard artist, and director
- Brenda Bakkeb. 1963USAmerican actress
- Ana Brenda Contrerasb. 1986MXMexican actress and singer
- Brenda Songb. 1988USAmerican actress and model (born 1988)
The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 109 sources across 61 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 521K | #80 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror) | 2022 | 152K | — |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 151K | #225 |
| GT Guatemala | RENAP — annual births | 2024 | 146K | #7 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Nomes (census name API) | — | 121K | #406 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | 2020 | 8.7K | — |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 840 | #225 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 639 | #80 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 139 | — |
| CA Canada | Statistics Canada — First names at birth by sex at birth (Table 17-10-0147-01) | 2023 | 8 | — |
| CA Canada | Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender | 2021 | 4 | #875 |
Reference works 4
- Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Rymut, Słownik nazwisk współcześnie w Polsce używanych (10 vols, IJP PAN, Kraków 1992–1994) — every Polish surname in the PESEL register at the end of 1990, with bearer counts nationally and per voivodeship1990
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- What does the name Brenda mean, and where does it come from?
- Modern name, probably from a masculine Norse name related to brandr 'sword' or 'firebrand'. Recorded by Le grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education).
- Is Brenda a male or female name?
- Brenda is a female name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
- In which country does Brenda have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 3.1 million people named Brenda in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled brenda.
- How common is the name Brenda?
- In the United States, the national register counted 521,400 people named Brenda in 2020, about 1 in 638 residents.
- How common is Brenda compared with other names?
- In Singapore, Brenda is the 40th most common given name of 52,448 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Brenda?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/brendaThe payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.
About this data
measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated
These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.
Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.
Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.
Cite this page Mondonomo, “Brenda” — the 40th most common given name in Singapore. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.