Gladys
given name · Latin script
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Gladys is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country. In Uruguay it is the 23rd most common given name. Recorded meaning: From the Welsh name Gwladus, which is of uncertain derivation.
- ECEcuador1 in 319(measured from records)
- PYParaguay≈1 in 333
- PEPeru≈1 in 384
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Where a country counts another spelling of the name rather than Gladys itself, the figure is that spelling’s, and it is named. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- China (inferred from the name graph)
- #785 (measured from records)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 401 (measured from records)
- 1 in 319 (inferred from the name graph)
≈500,000 people, est.
of 15M given names
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)
From the Welsh name Gwladus, which is of uncertain derivation. It has been quite widely used outside Wales in the 20th century.
Sources 1
- A concise dictionary of first names
Attested across 13 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Gladys 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 | — | ≈500,000 est. | ≈1 in 2.8K | — | Gladys | 19 |
| NG Nigeria | — | ≈130,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.7K | — | Gladys | 37 |
| AR Argentina | #137 | ≈110,000 est. | ≈1 in 420 | 13 | Gladys | 124 |
| KE Kenya | — | ≈93,000 est. | ≈1 in 574 | — | Gladys | 23 |
| PE Peru | #65 | ≈83,000 est. | ≈1 in 384 | — | Gladys | 98 |
| US United States | — | 81,883 | 1 in 4.1K | 82K | Gladys | 401 |
| EC Ecuador | #58 | 52,926 | 1 in 319 | 53K | Gladys | 75 |
| PY Paraguay | #57 | ≈22,000 est. | ≈1 in 333 | — | Gladys | 41 |
| UY Uruguay | #23 | 1,377as Gladis | 1 in 2.5K | 1.4K | Gladys | 50 |
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: RENAPER — Nombres de nacimientos (2012–present); Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; INEC — civil registry names; INE Uruguay — Nombres más frecuentes 1902–2024 (Tableau Public). 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)
Gladys is also recorded in 3 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
Americanized spelling of Polish Gtadysz (see Gladysz).
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
In Spanish, Gales, quizá del latín Claudia; usado desde el s. VII; identificado tradicionalmente con Gwladys.
as a nameDiccionario etimológico de nombres propios
Welsh and English: from the Welsh name Gwladus , which is of uncertain derivation. It has been quite widely used outside Wales in the 20th century.
as a word
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)
- Gladys Cooperb. 1888GBBritish actress (1888-1971)
- Mary Pickfordb. 1892CAnot in their usual nameCanadian actress and producer (1892–1979)
- Beatrice Lillieb. 1894CAnot in their usual nameCanadian-born British actress (1894–1989)
- Dodie Smithb. 1896GBnot in their usual nameEnglish children's novelist and playwright (1896–1990)
- Jean Arthurb. 1900USnot in their usual nameAmerican actress
- Gladys Monroeb. 1902USMother of Marilyn Monroe (1902–1984)
- Gladys Georgeb. 1904USAmerican actress (1904–1954)
- Gladys Westb. 1930USAmerican mathematician (1930–2026)
- Gladys Knightb. 1944USAmerican singer (born 1944)
- Gladys Berejiklianb. 1970AUAustralian politician
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 99 sources across 57 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 82K | #644 |
| EC Ecuador | INEC — civil registry names | 2024 | 53K | #24 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 145 | #644 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 49 | — |
| EC Ecuador | INEC — Visualizador de Nombres y Apellidos, per-token query API (1900–2024) | 2024 | 20 | — |
| AR Argentina | RENAPER — Nombres de nacimientos (2012–present) | 2024 | 13 | #1,861 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1991 | 5 | — |
Reference works 4
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- 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 Gladys come from?
- From the Welsh name Gwladus, which is of uncertain derivation. It has been quite widely used outside Wales in the 20th century. Recorded by A concise dictionary of first names.
- What does the name Gladys mean?
- Recorded meaning: From the Welsh name Gwladus, which is of uncertain derivation.
- Is Gladys a male or female name?
- Gladys 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.
- What are other forms of the name Gladys?
- In the etymology graph, Claudia, Claudine and Claudette are forms of the same name in other languages.
- In which country does Gladys have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 501 thousand people named Gladys in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled gladys.
- Where is Gladys most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Gladys is densest in Ecuador — about 1 in 319 people — even though China holds more of our records for it.
- How common is the name Gladys?
- In the United States, the national register counted 81,883 people named Gladys in 2020, about 1 in 4.1 thousand residents.
- How common is Gladys compared with other names?
- In Uruguay, Gladys is the 23rd most common given name of 12,212 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Gladys?
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/gladysThe same 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), and bulk access is licensed separately.
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, “Gladys” — the 23rd most common given name in Uruguay. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.