The name Brenda was created in England during the Middle Ages and means ‘torch, fire, sword’. It is a feminine form of the Old Norse name Brandr. Today, Brenda is thought to be a feminine form of Brendan, but these two names are not related.
Brenda is a female first name. In very rare cases it is also used for boys.
The name Brenda isn’t among the current fashionable names in our top 10 stats, but nonetheless, it’s still very popular and common. In our SmartGenius ranking of all girls names, Brenda ranks 807. Recently, out of every 10,000 newborn girls, approximately 2 were named Brenda. In total, there are currently 602,290 people – children, adults and seniors – named Brenda living in the United States, which is approximately 0.18 % of the entire population.
The name Brenda was created in England during the Middle Ages and means ‘torch, fire, sword’. It is a feminine form of the Old Norse name Brandr. Today, Brenda is thought to be a feminine form of Brendan, but these two names are not related.
During the 1950s,... Brenda was one of the most popular names in the US.
Who would have thought it? After many years of not appearing at all in the SmartGenius statistics, Brenda reached its highest rank ever in the year 1961 at #11. In other words: 23,850 newborn girls were named Brenda that year. Since then, it has been considered to be a universally popular name, chosen by a large number of happy parents every year. Although the times of its highest popularity are now many decades ago, Brenda is still going strong and has not been forgotten yet. We can only wait and see if there will be a new surprise in store and if Brenda will be able to top its all-time best ranking ever again.
In years where the graph has no value, the name Brenda was given less than five times or even none at all in the entire USA.
In 2022, Brenda ranked 1,157 in our SmartGenius statistics. In absolute figures, this means it was given to baby girls a total of 187 times. No one knows what names (or combinations of numbers and letters) will be popular 50 years from now, but given its consistent popularity, there is a good chance that Brenda will remain a universally popular name.
Wherever you go, wherever you live – there’s a good chance to meet Brenda. Because: There are women and girls named Brenda in every state in the USA. This may sound quite unspectacular at first, but in fact, of the more than 50,000 different female first names that occur in the USA, just 537 are recorded in each individual state, so the name Brenda is definitely something very special. In some regions it even makes it into the top 100 of the most popular female first names, for example in Tennessee, where Brenda ranks on place 11. The greatest chance of meeting Brenda, however, is in West Virginia, where one in 120 girls and women bears this beautiful name – that is far above average – in the entire USA it is only one in 256 women and girls and in New Jersey, where the name is least represented in relation to the population, you even have to ask an average of 469 women and girls for their name before you once get Brenda as an answer.
Well, you might say, you probably figured that out yourself! But what you might not know is: 3.2% of all common girls' names in the US begin with a B. This means that B as the first letter for girls' names is neither particularly common nor rare. The most common first letters of girls' names are A, S and M, while U, X and Q are the least common initials of girls' names.
With six letters, the name Brenda is of average length. In fact, 28% of all common first names in the US consist of exactly six letters. 24% of all first names are shorter, while 48% have seven letters or more. On average, first names in the US (not counting hyphenated names) are 6.5 letters long. There are no significant differences between boys' and girls' names.
Thus, if 3.2% of all girls’ names start with a B, this initial letter is slightly less common than all other letters on average. Nevertheless, there are girls' names with B that are quite common in the U.S., the most common at present is Barbara.
If your name is Brenda and someone asks after your name, you can of course just tell them what it is. But sometimes that isn't so easy - what if it's too loud, and you don't understand them well? Or what if the other person is so far away that you can see them but not hear them? In these situations, you can communicate your name in so many other ways: you call spell it, sign it, or even use a flag to wave it...
So that everyone really understands you when you have to spell the name Brenda, you can simply say:
Butterfly
Rocket
Elephant
Nut
Dinosaur
Apple
Braille is made up of dots, which the blind and visually impaired can feel to read words.
Brenda
Brenda
Just use American Sign Language!
These flags are used for maritime communication - each flag represents a letter.
B
R
E
N
D
A
In the navy, sailors of two ships might wave flags to each other to send messages. A sailor holds two flags in specific positions to represent different letters.
B
R
E
N
D
A
In Morse code, letters and other characters are represented only by a series of short and long tones. For example, a short tone followed by a long tone stands for the letter A. Brenda sounds like this:
