what your name mean? ( Archived) (62)

Wendy-an international chain of fast food restaurants founded by Dave Thomas

OR

The History of the Name "Wendy"
A lot of people will argue about whether or not the name Wendy was created by J.M. Barrie for the character "Wendy Darling" in his books about Peter Pan.
Is it true? Yes and no...


Wendy of Eons Past
Most of my life I thought the name Wendy is derivative of Gwendolyn or some variation of a way-way-back historical name you'd never want to assign to any young girl.
This is only partially true. A Doctor of Folklore (Leslie Ellen Jones, Ph.D.) told me some interesting stuff about the names Gwendolyn, Guinivere, and Wendy.

Gwendolyn and Guinevere are etymologically related in that they are both Welsh names beginning with the element "gwen-" which means "white/dazzling/holy" and is a *very* popular and productive name element for both female and male names. (The Welsh form of Guinevere is Gwenhwyfar, "white phantom/shadow", which is an exact cognate of the Irish name Finnabhair, the name of the daughter of Medb and Aillill of Connacht, in the Ulster cycle). Personally, if Wendy is derived from a Welsh name, my candidate would be Gwendydd (pronounced Gwen-deethe, "white day"), which was the name of Myrddin (Merlin)'s sister (as in the poem Ymddiddan Myrddin a Gwendydd ei Chwaer, the Conversation of Merlin and Gwendydd his Sister). Barrie's "Wendy" was invented at a time when ancient Welsh names were becoming popular again, as an expression of intellectual nationalism.
Mail from someone who does genealogical research shows that "Wendy" might have been in use before Peter Pan and might even have been a boy's name:
I must admit to being annoyed when I tell people my name. They always insist on mentioning Peter Pan. During my family reseach I have come across the name Wendy twice in the 1881 census of England, one born 1840, and one born in 1880. The magazine Family History also states that Wendy, along with the names Marian and Shirley were once boys names, and that in 1797 a boy named Wendy was apprenticed to some one in Glos.
And last, my own research has found references to two different emperors in China who have the name "Wendi" (sometimes also referred to as Wen-Ti):
Emperor Wendi, Han Dynasty (179BC-157BC)
Emperor Wendi, Sui Dynasty (541-604)