Edna
Meaning
pleasure, delight
The story
Edna comes from Hebrew and means pleasure or delight, and she appears in the Book of Tobit, in the old Greek scriptures, as the mother of Sarah, a deeper pedigree than most vintage names can claim. Its American heyday came early and emphatically: from the 1890s through the 1910s Edna ranked among the country's standard girls' names, later worn by the poet Edna St. Vincent Millay, whose candle famously burned at both ends, and the novelist Edna Ferber. The decline that followed was long, and the name has rested at the same quiet level since the 1960s, neither falling further nor stirring. That stillness is the interesting part. Ada, Hazel, and Mabel have already come back around, and Edna, with its soft open vowels and its meaning of pure delight, sits waiting in exactly the row where parents have lately been shopping.
Popularity, 1890–2024
Shape drawn from US Social Security baby-name records. Edna peaked in the 1890s and the 1910s in nearly equal measure.
Popularity in Brazil
183,091 people · the #181 first name in Brazil · about 1 in 1,109 · median age 51
Among people named Edna living in Brazil at the 2022 census, more were born in the 1960s than in any other decade.
The census also counted 272 born between 2020 and August 2022, too recent a span to chart.
Source: IBGE, Censo Demográfico 2022
When you meet Edna
Most people given the name Edna in the United States were born between 1940 and 1979. The Edna you meet today is most often in her 60s or 70s.
Estimated from US Social Security birth registrations and typical lifespans; a rough guide, not a rule.
The Edna deep dive
Whether you’re naming a baby or exploring your own name’s history, this is a personal letter, not a list: where Edna truly comes from, how it traveled, and what a century of records reveals. If you have grown a tree on nametree, it also considers how Edna fits with your family’s names and surname.
Keep exploring
Does Edna fit YOUR family?
nametree reads your family’s names and finds the ones that belong. Free, private, no ads.
Add Edna to your family’s tree →