Glenda
given name · Latin script
Meaning: Welsh: modern coinage, composed of the vocabulary words gldn ‘clean’, ‘pure’, ‘holy’ + da ‘good’
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/ɡlɛndə/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Glenda is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country.
- PHPhilippines≈1 in 1.7K(inferred from the name graph)
- NZNew Zealand≈1 in 2.3K
- IEIreland≈1 in 2.4K
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)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 484 (measured from records)
- 1 in 1.3K (inferred from the name graph)
≈460,000 people, est.
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Ecuador
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)
Welsh: modern coinage, composed of the vocabulary words gldn ‘clean’, ‘pure’, ‘holy’ + da ‘good’. It is associated particularly with the actress and politician Glenda Jackson (born 1937).
Sources 1
- A concise dictionary of first names
Attested across 2 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Glenda 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 | — | ≈460,000 est. | ≈1 in 3K | — | Glenda | 11 |
| US United States | #488 | 89,345 | 1 in 3.7K | 89K | Glenda | 484 |
| PH Philippines | #380 | ≈66,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.7K | — | Glenda | 117 |
| GB United Kingdom | #534 | ≈16,000 est. | ≈1 in 4.1K | 3 | Glenda | 179 |
| IT Italy | #784 | ≈14,000 est. | ≈1 in 4.6K | 15 | Glenda | 72 |
| EC Ecuador | — | 13,163 | 1 in 1.3K | 13K | Glenda | 30 |
| SG Singapore | #281 | ≈2,400 est. | ≈1 in 2.5K | — | Glenda | 44 |
| IE Ireland | #254 | ≈2,200 est. | ≈1 in 2.4K | — | Glenda | 45 |
| NZ New Zealand | #268 | ≈2,200 est. | ≈1 in 2.3K | 16 | Glenda | 88 |
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; NRS — Baby names Scotland full list (1974–present); INEC — civil registry names; ISTAT — Contanomi newborn per-name series (1999–2024, JSONP backend); DIA — Baby name popularity (1900–present). 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)
Glenda 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 Spanish, Forma femenina de Glen/Glenn; del gaélico gleann, 'valle estrecho y boscoso'.
as a nameDiccionario etimológico de nombres propios
In French, Nom gallois moderne, probablement lié à *glân* « pur, propre ».
as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
In French, Origine galloise, « pure et bonne ».
as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
In German, im 20. Jh. aus dem EngHschen übernommener weibl. Vom. waHsischer Her kunft; Neuprägung aus gäl. gian »sauber, rein, heiHg« + da »gut« oder weibliche Form des männlichen Vornamens
as a nameDUDEN Lexikon der Vornamen
Valle di montagna
as a nameIl grande libro dei nomi per bebè. Significato, origini, curiosità. Oltre 7000 nomi per bambine e bambini Significato,…
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)
- Glenda Farrellb. 1904USAmerican actress (1904–1971)
- Glenda Williamsb. 1912GBEnglish Canadian chef
- Glenda Jacksonb. 1936GBBritish actress and politician (1936–2023)
- Glenda Adamsb. 1939AUAustralian novelist and short story writer (1939–2007)
- Glenda Schroederb. 1950USAmerican software engineer
- Glenda Hatchettb. 1951USAmerican judge
- Glenda Baileyb. 1958GBBritish magazine editor
- Glenda Linscottb. 1958AUAustralian actress
- Glenda Braganzab. 1978CACanadian actress
- Glenda Morejónb. 2000ECEcuadorian racewalker
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).
How to address them(machine-generated)
A formal English salutation is built on the surname, so it needs a full name — on its own, a first name only supports the informal form.
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 82 sources across 47 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 89K | #596 |
| EC Ecuador | INEC — civil registry names | 2024 | 13K | #156 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 115 | #596 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 20 | — |
| NZ New Zealand | DIA — Baby name popularity (1900–present) | 1975 | 16 | — |
| IT Italy | ISTAT — Contanomi newborn per-name series (1999–2024, JSONP backend) | 2024 | 15 | #713 |
| EC Ecuador | INEC — Visualizador de Nombres y Apellidos, per-token query API (1900–2024) | 2024 | 12 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1966 | 6 | — |
| GB United Kingdom | NRS — Baby names Scotland full list (1974–present) | 1980 | 3 | #539 |
Reference works 3
- 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
- Where does the name Glenda come from?
- Welsh: modern coinage, composed of the vocabulary words gldn ‘clean’, ‘pure’, ‘holy’ + da ‘good’. It is associated particularly with the actress and politician Glenda Jackson (born 1937). Recorded by A concise dictionary of first names.
- What are other forms of the name Glenda?
- In the etymology graph, Glenna is a form of the same name in other languages.
- How common is the name Glenda?
- In the United States, the national register counted 89,345 people named Glenda in 2020, about 1 in 3.7 thousand residents.
- How common is Glenda compared with other names?
- In Ireland, Glenda is the 254th most common given name of 14,976 given names recorded there.
- How do you pronounce Glenda?
- A machine transcription gives /ɡlɛndə/ (IPA) for English.
- What does the name Glenda mean?
- Recorded meaning: Welsh: modern coinage, composed of the vocabulary words gldn ‘clean’, ‘pure’, ‘holy’ + da ‘good’.
- Is Glenda a male or female name?
- Glenda 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 Glenda have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 458 thousand people named Glenda in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled glenda.
- Where is Glenda most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Glenda is densest in Ecuador — about 1 in 1.3 thousand people — even though China holds more of our records for it.
What do you want to know about Glenda?
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/glendaThe 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, “Glenda” — the 254th most common given name in Ireland. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.