Edna

Where Edna comes from

From Hebrew עֶדְנָה (“pleasure; delight”); a variant of Eden in the Book of Tobit. In Ireland and Scotland it has been used as an anglicization of Eithne.
— Wiktionary's entry for Edna
  • Hebrew
  • 2 syllables
  • Vowel-ended
Along the way
  1. 1880
    First SSA year
    Already #45 among girls — 588 babies in the first year on record.
  2. 1892
    Edna St. Vincent Millay born
    American poet
  3. 1899
    Peak, #11
    2,534 babies named Edna — more than any year before or since.
  4. 1930
    Edna O'Brien born
    Irish writer
  5. 1957
    The fade
    The first year with half the peak's births — down to #241.
In the dictionary
  • A female given name from Hebrew.
Namesakes
  • Edna St. Vincent Millay · American poet, 1892–1950
  • Edna O'Brien · Irish writer, 1930–2024
  • Edna Ferber · American novelist, short story writer and playwright, 1885–1968
  • Edna Kiplagat · Kenyan long-distance runner, born 1979

Sources: the origin note and dictionary entry are quoted from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0); the namesakes come from Wikidata (CC0); the milestones are worked out from the SSA record.