Gwendolen (from Welsh gwen 'white, fair, blessed' and dolen 'loop, link of a chain, ring, bow') is a feminine given name, in general use only since the 19th century.

[1] It has come to be the standard English form of Latin Guendoloena, which was first used by Geoffrey of Monmouth as the name of a legendary British queen in his History of the Kings of Britain (c. 1138).

[1] In the Vita Merlini, however, Geoffrey Latinizes the masculine name of Gwenddoleu ap Ceidio as Guennolous.

Spelled Gwendoloena, the name reoccurs in the anonymous Latin romance De Ortu Waluuanii belonging to Arthur's queen Guinevere.

Gwendoline was in use in England by the 1860s (an early example being Lady Gwendoline Anson, born c. 1837, a daughter of the 1st Earl of Lichfield),[3] and Gwendolen appeared in Daniel Deronda, written by George Eliot and published in serialized form 1874–6.