History
The name Gwendolyn is a modification of the name Guendoloena, a fictional queen in the Historia Regum Britanniae written by Geoffrey of Monmouth in 1135. Geoffrey also used the name in his Vita Merlini to refer to a different character, Merlin's wife; the metre shows that he pronounced the name as a pentasyllable, Guĕndŏlŏēnă, with the "gu" pronounced "gw". Spelled Gwendoloena, the name appears as that of Arthur's queen Guinevere in the Latin romance De Ortu Waluuanii. Arthur Hutson has suggested that Geoffrey misread the masculine Old Welsh name Guendoleu as Guendolen, and then chose to Latinize it. The first records of a real person being named Gwendolen appear in the 19th century. Gwendoline was in use in England in the 1860s, and Gwendolen appeared in Daniel Deronda, written by George Eliot and published in serialized form 1874-6.
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