The name 'Kendra'

[Ceridwen]

No: HPFGUIDX 179353

Catlady:
> Which I think is a very pretty name, but I wonder when it was first
> used by Muggles. I suspect it was not used by Muggles until after
> Albus's Muggle-born mother was born and named Kendra. 

Ceridwen:
I wondered the same thing.  The name "Kendra" falls almost in the 
same category as "Tiffany" for me, a recent name that has taken off 
in popularity since the 1970s.  In that light, I went to my bookshelf 
and dragged out my beat-up copy of "What to Name Your Baby" by 
Nurnberg and Rosenbloom, sixteenth edition, 1977.

The name "Kendra" doesn't appear in the regular listings.  It doesn't 
appear under the Germanic languages, the Slavic languages, the Finno-
Urgic languages, the Romance languages, or the Israeli listings.  It 
is not listed in A Galaxy of the Unusual.  To this book, the name 
doesn't exist.

I checked Catholic Online <http://www.catholic.org/> for any saints 
named Kendra - just because it isn't listed in a thirty year old baby 
book doesn't mean it doesn't exist in the Real World - but found no 
saints by this name.

I checked the Society for Creative Anachronism, Inc. (SCA) and found 
a list of old Anglo-Saxon names <http://www.s-
gabriel.org/names/marieke/anglosaxonfem/> that lists Kynedriþ and 
Kynedrithe, along with the more common Cy... spellings, which may be 
forerunners of the name.

I'm glad you brought this up.  That name for the proposed time, 
dragged me right out of the story.  I never knew anyone named Kendra 
while I was growing up.  I never knew anyone whose mother, aunt, 
cousin or grandmother was named Kendra.  The name doesn't fit.

I notice things like that.  My name comes from the Welsh legendary 
cycle, but it wasn't used as a first name until the mid-1800s, then 
there was only one instance.  I've been asked if I'm part of a Welsh 
nationalist movement, or if my parents were, because of my name (the 
answer is no).

To this point, the names seemed to match the eras and the WW.  A lot 
of the pre-Harry generation names come from Latin.  The kids in 
Harry's years have more common British names.  The Black family is 
off in a cosmos all their own.  ;)  I could probably have bought the 
name Kendra in the WW in the 1800s, since they do have a slightly 
different culture and references than the Muggle world.  To have 
Kendra Dumbledore be Muggle-born and have that name was a huge 
disconnect for me.

If people want to talk about names outside of the context of the 
books, Off-List Chatter would be the best place to do it.

Ceridwen.