Wendy owes its popularity to J. M. Barrie, who used it for the eldest Darling child in Peter Pan in 1904; he is said to have taken it from a small girl's attempt to call him her "friend", and it is also used as a short form of the Welsh Gwendolen. In the United States Wendy was a staple of the 1960s and 1970s. It still ranked number 317 in 2000, peaked at number 253 in 2001 and has slipped to number 1347 in 2025.