Gwendolyn
given name · Latin script
Meaning: Welsh name meaning ‘white ring’; from gwen ‘white/blessed’ + dolen ‘ring’
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Gwendolyn is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country. In Jamaica it is the 35th most common given name.
- JMJamaica≈1 in 1.9K(inferred from the name graph)
- GHGhana≈1 in 2.1K
- PKPakistan≈1 in 2.7K
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)
- Sources
- 462 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 1.9K (inferred from the name graph)
≈310,000 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Jamaica, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
Welsh name meaning ‘white ring’; from gwen ‘white/blessed’ + dolen ‘ring’.
Sources 1
- Irish first names
Attested across 3 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Gwendolyn 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 | — | ≈310,000 est. | ≈1 in 4.5K | — | Gwendolyn | 14 |
| PK Pakistan | — | ≈87,000 est. | ≈1 in 2.7K | — | Gwendolyn | 4 |
| US United States | #514 | 74,571 | 1 in 4.5K | 74K | Gwendolyn | 462 |
| GH Ghana | #110 | ≈14,000 est. | ≈1 in 2.1K | — | Gwendolyn | 26 |
| GB United Kingdom | #632 | ≈12,000 est. | ≈1 in 5.3K | 3 | Gwendolyn | 98 |
| JM Jamaica | #35 | ≈1,500 est. | ≈1 in 1.9K | — | Gwendolyn | 6 |
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). 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).
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Gwen Wakelingb. 1901USnot in their usual nameAmerican costume designer (1901–1982)
- Gwendolyn B. Bennettb. 1902USAmerican writer (1902–1981)
- Gwendolyn Brooksb. 1917USAmerican writer (1917–2000)
- Gwendolyn MacEwenb. 1941CACanadian poet and novelist (1941–1987)
- Gwen Ifillb. 1955USnot in their usual nameAmerican journalist, television newscaster and author (1955–2016)
- Gwendolyn Audrey Fosterb. 1960USAmerican academic
- Gwendolyn Ruttenb. 1975BEFlemish politician
- Gwendolyn Gourvenecb. 1984FRFrench actress
- Gwen Berryb. 1989USnot in their usual nameAmerican female hammer thrower
- Gwendolyn Göbelb. 2006DEactress
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 55 sources across 34 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 74K | #694 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 848 | — |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 103 | #694 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1974 | 7 | — |
| GB United Kingdom | NRS — Baby names Scotland full list (1974–present) | 2021 | 3 | #792 |
| GB United Kingdom | The Penguin Book of Baby Names (David Pickering) | — | — | — |
Reference works 2
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
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 Gwendolyn mean, and where does it come from?
- Welsh name meaning ‘white ring’; from gwen ‘white/blessed’ + dolen ‘ring’. Recorded by Irish first names.
- What are other forms of the name Gwendolyn?
- In the etymology graph, Gwendoline, Gwendolen and Guendolen are forms of the same name in other languages.
- Is Gwendolyn a male or female name?
- Gwendolyn 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 Gwendolyn have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 310 thousand people named Gwendolyn in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled gwendolyn.
- How common is the name Gwendolyn?
- In the United States, the national register counted 74,571 people named Gwendolyn in 2020, about 1 in 4.5 thousand residents.
- How common is Gwendolyn compared with other names?
- In Jamaica, Gwendolyn is the 35th most common given name of 21,568 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Gwendolyn?
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/gwendolynThe 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, “Gwendolyn” — the 35th most common given name in Jamaica. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.