Dena

Where Dena comes from

Dena hasn't made it into the dictionaries we draw on, and nobody well known enough for an encyclopedia has carried it yet — so for now its story is the one the SSA record tells. Names that spell a familiar sound a new way often live here for a while before anyone writes them down.

  • Vowel-ended
Along the way
  1. 1880
    First SSA year
    Already #466 among girls — 13 babies in the first year on record.
  2. 1928
    Dena Dietrich born
    American actress
  3. 1970
    Peak, #208
    1,542 babies named Dena — more than any year before or since.
  4. 1976
    The fade
    The first year with half the peak's births — down to #331.
  5. 1989
    Dena Kaplan born
    South African-Australian actress and dancer
In the dictionary

No dictionary entry for this spelling — which is its own kind of rare.

Namesakes
  • Dena Kaplan · South African-Australian actress and dancer, born 1989
  • Dena Dietrich · American actress, 1928–2020
  • Dena Head · American basketball player, born 1970
  • Dena DeRose · Jazz pianist and singer, educator, born 1966
  • Dena Grayson · American medical doctor and biochemist, born 1971

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.