Entry № 3923 · Welsh origin

Gwendolen Gwendolen — Meaning, Origin & Baby Name Popularity

/ GWEN-doh-len /
Gender
Girl
Origin
Welsh
Meaning
"White ring, blessed circle"
Syllables
3
First recorded
Medieval (Welsh)

A name that means "white ring, blessed circle".

Gwendolen combines the Welsh gwen (white, blessed) and dolen (ring, bow) — meaning "white ring" or "blessed circle." In Arthurian legend, Gwendolen was a queen.

Gwendolen Fairfax is the witty heroine of Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest (1895).

Blessed circle. Wilde's Earnest heroine.

The name in its native script.

Gwendolen
Transliteration
Gwendolen
Pronunciation
/ ˈɡwɛn.də.lɛn /
Root
Grammatical form

Where Gwendolen stands.

Gwendolen does not currently appear in the US Social Security Administration's top 1,000 girls' names, so we don't publish a US rank or birth count for it. That says nothing about the name's standing elsewhere in the world — only that it sits outside the ranked US data we rely on.

Gwendolens before her.

Real people

In fiction
Gwendolen Fairfax
Heroine of The Importance of Being Earnest.
Oscar Wilde, 1895
Gwendolen Harleth
Heroine of Daniel Deronda.
George Eliot, 1876

Names connected to Gwendolen.

The number behind Gwendolen.

9

The Giver

In Pythagorean numerology the letters of Gwendolen reduce to 9, The Giver. This is a traditional interpretive system, not a factual claim about the name.