Brenda
given name · Latin script
Meaning: Modern name, probably from a masculine Norse name related to brandr 'sword' or 'firebrand'
A female name· listed as female by the registers that count names by sex
(measured from records)Officially recorded in 61 countries · latest register: SSA, 2025
/ˈbɹɛndə/(recorded in a dictionary) English · from Wiktionary
Brenda is a female given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country, where it is the 91st most common given name.
- GTGuatemala≈1 in 410(inferred from the name graph)
- IEIreland≈1 in 430
- CACanada≈1 in 510
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Countries with no figure are shown too: flat where a national register lists the name without counting it, hatched where only our records hold it. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- United States (measured from records)
- #213 (measured from records)
- 5 (measured from records)
- Record sources
- 604 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 406 (inferred from the name graph)
521,400 people, 2020
of 15M given names, spellings grouped
recorded for this name
corpus datasets behind its best-documented spelling
strongest: 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'.
Cited for this meaning 1
- Le grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.
Often considered alongside
Names that people choosing a name often weigh against Brenda, most often first. They share a style rather than an origin.
From the names suggested together in public name-advice forums, in English. A list of what people consider, not a measure of how common any name is.
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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 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 |
| EG Egypt | #613 | ≈69,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.5K | — | Brenda | 30 |
| 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 |
521,400 people counted by Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex, 2020. 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).
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)109 registers and reference works attest this spelling, 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. National registers that list it by sex list it as female: United States (Census Bureau, 2020), Brazil (IBGE, 2022), Guatemala (RENAP, 2024) and Netherlands (Meertens NVB), among others.
- How do you pronounce Brenda?
- It depends on the language: in English /ˈbɹɛndə/ (Wiktionary); in Spanish /ˈbɾenda/ (Wiktionary).
- In which country does Brenda have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 521 thousand people named Brenda, 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 the United States, Brenda is the 91st most common given name of 2,815,431 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 91st most common given name in United States. Data snapshot 2026-10-13.