Zenda
Of unknown origin, potentially a variant of the name Zande.
Name Census estimates that about 231 living Americans carry the first name Zenda. The name is used almost exclusively for girls. The average person named Zenda today is around 61 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Zenda births was 1953 (22 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Zenda. Below you will find a gender breakdown showing how the name splits between male and female registrations, a year-by-year popularity chart stretching back to 1880, decade-level totals, the top US states for this name, its meaning and etymology, and a set of frequently asked questions with data-backed answers.
People living today
231
~ 1 in 1,483,785 Americans
Peak year
1953
22 babies that year
Average age
61
years old
1997 SSA rank
#16,141
Tracked since 1914
Census
Zenda in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 343 people with the first name Zenda, which placed it at #26,904 in the published first-name tables. This is a snapshot of people who already had the name at the time of the Census.
The SSA sections elsewhere on this page answer a different question: how often parents gave the name to babies over time. The "people living today" figure on this page is different again: it is a current estimate built from SSA birth records and age-based survival rates, so the two numbers are not expected to match exactly.
2020 Census rank
#26,904
National first-name rank
People counted
343
343 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.1
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
53.6% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Zenda
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Zenda is White at 53.6%. The next largest groups are Black (23.3%) and Hispanic (9.3%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself.
The bar chart below shows how people with the first name Zenda described their own race and ethnicity on the 2020 Census form. The Census Bureau groups responses into six broad categories: White, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, Asian and Pacific Islander, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Two or More Races. When a category has too few respondents for a given name, the Bureau suppresses the figure to protect individual privacy, which is why some names show fewer than six slices.
Percentages are shown so the breakdown is easy to read across every published category. Because the 2020 Census first-name file also includes raw headcounts for each group, Name Census can show those alongside the percentages in the legend and hover tooltip.
Keep in mind that these are self-reported numbers. A first name does not determine a person's race or ethnicity, and the distribution you see here reflects the specific population who happened to carry the name Zenda at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White53.6% · 184
- Black or African American23.3% · 80
- Hispanic or Latino9.3% · 32
- Asian and Pacific Islander7.6% · 26
- Two or more races4.7% · 16
- American Indian and Alaska Native1.5% · 5
Popularity
Zenda: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Zenda from the 1910s through to the 1990s, spanning 9 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1950s, with 116 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1950s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Zenda by decade
The table below breaks the full SSA timeline into ten-year windows. Each row shows how many male and female babies were given the name Zenda during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Origin
Meaning and history of Zenda
The name Zenda is believed to have originated from the Slavic cultures of Eastern Europe, particularly in the regions that are now modern-day Poland and Ukraine. The name is thought to be derived from the Slavic root word "zend," which means "to live" or "life."
One of the earliest recorded references to the name Zenda can be found in a 12th-century Polish chronicle, which mentions a noblewoman named Zenda who lived in the town of Krakow. This suggests that the name was in use among the Polish nobility during the High Middle Ages.
In the 16th century, a famous Polish writer and poet named Jan Kochanowski included a character named Zenda in one of his pastoral plays. This literary reference further solidified the name's place in Polish culture and tradition.
The name Zenda also appears in several historical records from the 17th and 18th centuries in the regions of modern-day Ukraine and Belarus. One notable example is Zenda Radziwill (1625-1672), a Polish-Lithuanian noblewoman who played a significant role in the political and cultural life of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
Another historical figure with the name Zenda was Zenda Opaliński (1640-1695), a Polish nobleman and military commander who fought in the Polish-Ottoman Wars of the late 17th century.
In the 19th century, the name Zenda gained wider recognition with the publication of the novel "The Prisoner of Zenda" by Anthony Hope in 1894. The book, set in a fictional Central European country called Ruritania, featured a character named Princess Flavia, whose full name was Flavia Zenda.
Other notable individuals with the name Zenda include Zenda Lielpetere (1891-1964), a Latvian author and translator, and Zenda Addams (1915-1993), an American actress and dancer who appeared in several Broadway productions and Hollywood films.
While the name Zenda has its roots in Eastern Europe, it has since spread to other parts of the world, particularly through immigration and cultural exchange. However, its origins and historical significance remain closely tied to the Slavic cultures of Poland, Ukraine, and Belarus.
People
Zenda + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Zenda as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with Z
Other first names starting with Z with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Zenda: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Zenda?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 231 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Zenda going back to 1880 and adjusting each cohort for expected survival using CDC actuarial life tables. The result is an age-weighted living-bearer count, not a raw birth total. That works out to about 1 in 1,483,785 US residents.
Is Zenda a common name?
We classify Zenda as "Very Rare". It ranks above 76.1% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 324 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Zenda most popular?
The single biggest year for Zenda was 1953, when 22 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Zenda is about 61 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Zenda in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 343 people with the name Zenda, or 0.11 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #26,904 in the national Census ranking for first names.
Why is the Census count different from the living estimate?
Because they measure different things. The Census figure is a count of people who had the name Zenda in 2020. The living estimate aims to answer a current question instead: how many people with the name are alive today, based on SSA birth records and age-based survival rates. Since one number is a 2020 snapshot and the other is a present-day estimate, they are not expected to be identical.
What does the Census say about the gender split for Zenda?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Zenda appears almost entirely female. Of the 346 people counted with this name, 99.4% were female and only a very small share were male. The Census view is a snapshot of people living with the name in 2020, while the SSA section above tracks births across time.
What does the Census say about the background of people named Zenda?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Zenda is White at 53.6%. The next largest groups are Black (23.3%) and Hispanic (9.3%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself. The percentages in the chart above come from self-reported race and Hispanic-origin responses in the 2020 Census.
Which group reports the name Zenda most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Zenda in the 2020 Census, accounting for 53.6% (184 people in the published table).
Why can the Census sex total and race total differ slightly?
The Census Bureau published separate 2020 tables for sex and for race/Hispanic origin, and the released figures can differ slightly because of privacy protection in the public files. That is why this page treats the gender section and the race/origin section as two related snapshots instead of forcing them into one identical total.
Does every first name have Census demographic data?
No. The public Census first-name release only includes names that met the Bureau's publication rules, so many rarer names in the SSA files have no Census demographic snapshot. When that happens, the SSA trend, gender history, and state sections still appear, but the 2020 Census demographic sections are omitted.
What does the SSA popularity chart show?
The chart tracks births, not the number of people alive with the name today. Each point shows how many babies were given the name Zenda in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Zenda a female name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Zenda in the SSA data are female. You can see the full per-sex comparison in the gender distribution section above, which includes the latest year rank, birth count, and peak year for each sex.
Is Zenda still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Zenda in 2024, and the page above shows its latest-year rank where available. A name can be well past its peak and still remain in steady use, especially if it built up a large population over earlier decades.
Why can a name have a lot of living bearers even if it is not trendy now?
Because living-bearer counts and current baby-name popularity measure different things. A name like Zenda can build up a very large population over many decades, even if fewer parents are choosing it now than they did at its peak.
Where does this data come from?
First-name figures come from the Social Security Administration's national baby name files, which cover every name on a birth certificate from 1880 to 2024. Living-bearer estimates layer in CDC actuarial life tables broken out by sex to account for mortality. The population baseline (342,754,338) is the Census Bureau's latest national estimate. You can read the full calculation on our methodology page.
How many people have Zenda as a first name?
For a quick modern estimate, our sister site HowManyOfMe.org answers that in one glance, with the living-bearer count front and centre.