Girl · Old High German / Frankish
Bertha
Say it: BER-thuh
Meaning
From Germanic berht 'bright, famous'.
Certainscholars agree on this meaning.
Popular in English and German-speaking countries in the late 19th century, then fell sharply out of fashion.
Its wave through time
Fading since the 1890s
In the United States
- 208,642 babies given this name since 1880
- At its height in 1891, about 1 in 78 girls
- 26 babies in 2020
Through the ages
- The Early Middle Ages400 to 800
- The High and Late Middle Ages1100 to 1450
- Victorian and Belle Époque1837 to 1914
- The Modern Age1880 to today
Used by
The family of the name
Other spellings: Berta
| German | Berta |
|---|---|
| French | Berthe |
| Italian | Berta |
| Spanish | Berta |
| Dutch | Berta |
Famous bearers
- Bertha of Kent, Frankish princess who welcomed Augustine's mission
- Bertha von Suttner, Austrian peace campaigner and Nobel laureate
Names worth a look
Where this comes from
- Royal and noble genealogies
- Lives of the saints and early Christian martyrologies
- National census records of the 19th and 20th centuries
- United States Social Security birth records, 1880 to today source
- Anglo-Saxon charters, chronicles and church records
- United States Social Security birth records, 1880 to today source
Meanings and histories are compiled from the study of names and their languages and checked by a second review.
Meanings and histories are drawn from the study of names and their languages, each with a confidence rating; popularity figures come from official birth records. Name histories are a living field: if you know of a correction, we would be glad to hear it.