Wendy
 Wendy Darling drawn by Oliver Herford in The Peter Pan Alphabet | |
| Gender | Female |
|---|---|
| Language(s) | English |
| Origin | |
| Word/name | Peter Pan |
| Other names | |
| Alternative spelling | Wendi |
| Related names | Gwendolyn |
Wendy is a given name generally given to females in English-speaking countries.
The name is found in United States records from the 19th century; Wendy Gram, a female resident of Ohio, was born in 1828, and the name Wendy appeared over twenty times in the U.S. Census of 1880. In Britain, Wendy appeared as a boy's name in the 1881 census of England, and was occasionally used as a nickname for the Welsh Gwendolyn. However, its popularity as a girl's name is attributed to the character Wendy Darling from the 1904 play Peter Pan and its 1911 novelization Peter and Wendy by J. M. Barrie.[1][2][3] The name was inspired by young Margaret Henley, daughter of Barrie's friend W. E. Henley. With the common childhood difficulty pronouncing Rs, Margaret reportedly used to call him 'my fwiendy-wendy'.
The name Wendy is sometimes considered a variation of the name Wanda.[4]
Various Chinese rulers have held the name and title Emperor Wen, which in Chinese is read Wen(-)di (文帝). Chinese women with the same or similar-sounding characters as their given names often Anglicise their names as Wendi or Wendy (e.g. Wendi Deng, Wendy Kweh).
References
- ^ Was the name Wendy invented for the book Peter Pan? at The Straight Dope
- ^ Patrick Hanks and Flavia Hodges, Dictionary of First Names, 1990
- ^ The History of the name "Wendy"
- ^ Think Baby Names - Wanda