Brenda
Brenda is outside the top 1,000 in 2024, with 212 births. Its best rank was 11th, in 1961.
- Rank in 2024
- —outside the top 1,000
- Births in 2024
- 2120.01% of girls
- Peak year
- 195724,338 births
- Best rank
- #11in 1961
- Since 1897
- 610,451people given the name
The story in the numbers
608,331 girls have been named Brenda in the United States since 1897, according to Social Security records. The busiest single year was 1957, with 24,338 births — 1.2% of all girls recorded that year.
The name has all but left use: 212 births in 2024, against 24,338 at the peak.
Half of everyone given the name was born by 1958, and the 1950s alone account for 34%. It has spent 90 of 145 years in the top 1,000, 39 of them in the top 100.
It is overwhelmingly a girl’s name: 2,120 boys have also been given it, 0.35% of the total.
Rank among girls, year by year
By decade
| Decade | girls named Brenda | |
|---|---|---|
| 1890s | 7 | |
| 1900s | 32 | |
| 1910s | 180 | |
| 1920s | 469 | |
| 1930s | 4,380 | |
| 1940s | 112,414 | |
| 1950s | 209,243 | |
| 1960s | 164,496 | |
| 1970s | 48,593 | |
| 1980s | 24,146 | |
| 1990s | 24,929 | |
| 2000s | 14,346 | |
| 2010s | 4,141 | |
| 2020s | 955 |
In 1957, its biggest year
Brenda was the 13th most given girl’s name that year. The top five girls’ names of 1957 were Mary, Susan, Linda, Debra and Karen. See all of 1957.
Names that rose and fell with Brenda
Same sex, most similar popularity curve over 145 years, in five-year steps — the shape of the line, not the size.
- Lynpeak 1957
- Karenpeak 1957
- Lynnpeak 1956
- Suzanpeak 1955
- Susanpeak 1955
- Brindapeak 1952
- Lynnepeak 1960
- Pamellapeak 1954
What this page does not tell you. The Social Security data records how many babies were given a name, not what the name means or where it comes from — so neither do we. Counts cover people with a Social Security number; names given to fewer than five babies in a year are withheld. More on the data.