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I ran across something odd today...
I have an iPhone app that lists facts, trivia, and other useless information (it's called Cool Facts, downloaded from iTunes). So far, nothing I've found on it has been terribly inaccurate. However, flipping through it today, I came across this:
To say the very least, I'm skeptical. So the question is:
Was the name "Wendy" actually created by J.M. Barrie for Peter Pan?
Or, if this is a myth, does anyone know where it originated?
From The Straight Dope:
All kidding aside, J. M. Barrie did not invent the name Wendy for his 1904 play Peter Pan, the Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up (the book form of the story, Peter and Wendy, was published in 1911).
But we have absolute proof that there were earlier Wendys, thanks to the just-released 1880 U.S. Census and the 1881 British Census (available here).
These documents show that the name Wendy, while not common, was indeed used in both the U.S. and Great Britain throughout the 1800s. I had no trouble finding twenty females with the first name Wendy in the United States, the earliest being Wendy Gram of Ohio (born in 1828).
Using the search above you can see the results for yourself.
"Wendy" is actually short for "Gwendolyn".
This name was originally used in United States before Peter Pan was written, so "Wendy" was actually recorded before Peter Pan
Here's one source disproving the fact that the name didn't exist before Peter Pan (It's a quote from a third source, so take with some dose of skepticism :)
http://www.wendy.com/wendyweb/history.html
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.
It is theorized that the very-rarely-used name was derived from a Welsh name rooted in "gwen-" which means "white/dazzling/holy".
From what I have seen, there is no evidence to prove or dis-prove whether Barrie was aware of the existence of the Welsh-derived name or not; but due to its rarity pre-Peter-Pan, it is quite plausible that he was not aware and re-invented it on his own.
