Thanks for all the help!
I would use
Wendy, I love that name, but I know it wasn't invented in the 1800s (unless it's the late 1800s). It was actually invented for the character
Wendy Darling in
Peter Pan.
James M.
Barrie (
Peter Pan's author) had a friend who was a little girl. Her nickname for him was Friendy, but she couldn't say her Rs correctly, so she called him Fwendy. When Sir
Barrie was stuck on a name for his little mother, he took the F off of Fwendy and came up with
Wendy!
If you can't tell, I'm a
Peter Pan fanatic -- more so of the book than of Disney's awful version that was way off the story.