Glenna

About Glenna

Glenna is an English feminine form of Glenn, carrying the Scottish Gaelic meaning “valley.” Pronounced GLEN-uh, it combines a landscape origin with a distinctly twentieth-century American history. Golfer Glenna Collett Vare and sculptor Glenna Goodacre give the name substantial connections with women’s sport and public art.

From a valley to a personal name

Glenn developed as a Scottish surname from Gaelic gleann, a valley. Its use as a first name brought that landscape word into a new setting, and Glenna added a feminine ending. Glen is another spelling in the same family.

The name therefore has a geographical foundation rather than a flower or gemstone meaning. The English word glen, familiar in descriptions of Scottish scenery, preserves the same recognizable landscape connection. Glenna keeps that entire word at its opening, followed by a light final syllable.

Glenna Collett Vare and golf

Glenna Collett Vare won six U.S. Women’s Amateur championships between 1922 and 1935. Her victories included three consecutive titles in 1928, 1929, and 1930, a remarkable stretch within a career that helped define American women’s amateur golf.

The USGA Museum preserves a club she used in all six championship victories. This wooden-headed club, known as a spoon, connects her achievements with the equipment of an earlier golfing era.

Her name also remains attached to the U.S. Girls’ Junior trophy. She donated it in 1949, the year that championship began. The Glenna Collett Vare Trophy links an early champion with later generations of young players.

Glenna Goodacre and public sculpture

Sculptor Glenna Goodacre created the Vietnam Women’s Memorial in Washington, D.C., dedicated in 1993. Its group of women caring for a wounded serviceman brought women’s wartime service into the memorial landscape near the Vietnam Veterans Memorial wall.

Her work also reached millions of people on a much smaller scale. Goodacre designed the obverse of the Sacagawea dollar introduced in 2000. It shows Sacagawea with her infant son, Jean Baptiste, carried on her back.

The memorial and the coin represent two different kinds of public art: a place people travel to visit and an object they can hold. Both make Goodacre a particularly tangible cultural connection for Glenna.

Pronunciation and related names

Glenna has two syllables and first-syllable stress. Its opening rhymes with “when,” while the ending is an unstressed uh. The doubled n does not create an extra syllable.

Glenn and Glen are the closest historical relatives. Glenna’s added vowel makes its rhythm different from those one-syllable forms, while leaving the valley connection easy to recognize.

American popularity

Glenna’s best American rank for girls was number 256 in 1931. Its largest annual count came later, in 1951, when 645 girls received the name.

By 2000, the count had fallen to 20. Seven girls were named Glenna in 2025. That long decline places its strongest American use in the early and middle decades of the twentieth century.

How popular is Glenna?

In 2025, Glenna ranked #12,345 among girls in the United States, with 7 recorded uses. The U.S. birth records first list this spelling for girls in 1880; its largest annual count was 645 in 1951. Rankings count each spelling separately. They describe national use, so local familiarity can differ. The popularity chart shows whether the name has remained common, returned after a quieter period, or risen recently.