Winifred comes from the Welsh Gwenfrewi — gwen (blessed, fair) and frewi (peace, reconciliation) — meaning "blessed peacemaker" or "fair reconciliation." Saint Winifred of Wales (7th century) is the patron of healing wells; her shrine at Holywell remains a pilgrimage site.
Winifred was popular in the late 19th century and the first decades of the 20th — peaking at #29 in 1916. After a long decline, it is returning as part of the vintage revival. Today Winifred sits in the U.S. top 700 and is climbing.
Winifred 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.
In Pythagorean numerology the letters of Winifred reduce to 7, The Seeker. This is a traditional interpretive system, not a factual claim about the name.