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My first thought was Arden spelled backwards. My second is that it's a feminine spin on Ned, a nickname for Edward. Interestingly, Nedra is also a Serbian and Croatian word meaning "bosom, breast" and perhaps in a figurative sense "heart". However, as an American name, Nedra seems to be inspired by the 1905 novel by George Barr McCutcheon (according to a submitted name on this site); Nedra is the name of an island where 2 survivors of a shipwreck find themselves on. I can't help wondering if McCutcheon based it on Arden spelled backwards; as well as being an author he was also a playwright and from what I've read of the plot it seems to share a few similarities with Shakespeare's play As You Like It, where most of the action takes place in the Forest of Arden. But I've never read the book so I can't be certain of that. Just a guess.

This message was edited 5/22/2020, 6:52 PM

Nedra is a name inspired from a novel, namely 'Nedra' by George Barr McCutcheon published in 1905. In the novel, Nedra is the name of an island where the protagonists are stranded, but the cover of the novel can give the impression that it were a girl's name. After that, Nedra was reused for several characters in early films. As far as I know, Nedra has no meaning (neither in-story nor externally).

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You can find a good post about this on Nancy Man's site here: http://www.nancy.cc/2017/04/19/mccutcheon-baby-names-yetive-nedra/

It's a shot in the dark, but perhaps a feminine form of Ned?