Girl · Old High German / Frankish
Gertrud
Say it: GAIR-troot
Meaning
From Germanic ger 'spear' and trud 'strength'.
Likelythe main view, with some doubt.
Spread across Europe through the cult of Saint Gertrude, and was a top English and German name in the late 19th century.
Its wave through time
Rare in the records
In the United States
- 34 babies given this name since 1894
- At its height in 1894, about 1 in 37,200 girls
- Fewer than 5 babies a year in 2020
Through the ages
- The Early Middle Ages400 to 800
- The High and Late Middle Ages1100 to 1450
- The Renaissance1400 to 1600
- Victorian and Belle Époque1837 to 1914
- The Modern Age1880 to today
Used by
The family of the name
Other spellings: Gertraud, Gertraut, Trude
| English | Gertrude |
|---|---|
| French | Gertrude |
| Italian | Geltrude |
| Spanish | Gertrudis |
| Dutch | Geertruida |
| Polish | Gertruda |
Famous bearers
- Saint Gertrude of Nivelles, Frankish abbess
- Gertrude the Great, German mystic
- Gertrude Stein, American writer
Names worth a look
Where this comes from
- Lives of the saints and early Christian martyrologies
- Calendars of saints and name days
- National census records of the 19th and 20th centuries
- 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.