Gertrude

given name · Latin script

Meaning: Germanic ‘spear strength’; used in Ireland to anglicise Grania

Used for both men and women, depending on the country· national registers that list names by sex disagree

  • United States (Census Bureau, 2020): listed as female
  • Netherlands (Meertens NVB): listed as female
  • France (INSEE, 1972): listed as female
  • Finland (DVV): listed under both sexes

(measured from records)Officially recorded in 43 countries · latest register: Dominica, 2025

/ˈɡɝtɹud/(recorded in a dictionary) English · from Wiktionary

Say it inExplore pronunciation →

Gertrude is a given name used for both men and women, depending on the country, written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country. In Jamaica it is the 55th most common given name.

  • JMJamaica≈1 in 2.6K(inferred from the name graph)
  • NLNetherlands1 in 3.7K
  • DMDominica≈1 in 4.7K

carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Countries with no figure are shown too: flat where a national register lists the name without counting it, hatched where only our records hold it. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.

United States (measured from records)

20,978 people, 2020

Record sources
335 (measured from records)

corpus datasets behind its best-documented spelling

strongest: highest-authority source

≈1 in 2.6K (inferred from the name graph)

Jamaica, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)Make your nomograph ✦

Meaning & origin

(measured from records)

Germanic ‘spear strength’; used in Ireland to anglicise Grania.

Cited for this meaning 1

  • Irish first names

Attested across 9 languages in the etymology graph.

Often considered alongside

Names that people choosing a name often weigh against Gertrude, most often first. They share a style rather than an origin.

From the names suggested together in public name-advice forums, in English. A list of what people consider, not a measure of how common any name is.

Where in the world

(measured from records)

Gertrude counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.

Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.

Where Gertrude is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
US United States#61320,9781 in 16K21KGertrude335
GB United Kingdom#640≈14,000 est.≈1 in 5KlistedGertrude111
NG Nigeria—≈13,000 est.≈1 in 18K—Gertrude41
ZA South Africa—≈11,000 est.≈1 in 5.6K—Gertrude36
CA Canada#790≈6,500 est.≈1 in 6.4K1Gertrude97
NL Netherlands—4,7051 in 3.7K4.6KGertrude40
JM Jamaica#55≈1,100 est.≈1 in 2.6K—Gertrude4
DM Dominica—≈14 est.≈1 in 4.7K71—2

20,978 people counted by Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex, 2020. Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.

Registers cited: Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; the gb-nisra-baby-names-ni register; Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender; Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (all-time BRP bearer counts, 2018); Dominica — Revised List of Electors May 2025. Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.

Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).

Other names spelled this way

(inferred from the name graph)

Gertrude is also recorded as 4 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • German given name7 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Germany, Austria, United Kingdom

    Languages: German, English

    Also written Gertruede, Gertrüde, Ģertrūde, Gertrúde

  • a separate name3 spellings in the group

    Also written Ģertrūde, Gertrūde

  • Hungarian given name5 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Hungary, United States, Finland, Estonia

    Languages: Hungarian, Finnish, Estonian

    Also written Gertrūde, Gértrúdé

  • German given name32 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Germany, United States, Switzerland, Sweden

    Languages: German, English, Spanish

    Also written Gertrud, Gertrúd, Gertrüd, Γκερτρουντ

59 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Other recorded senses

(measured from records)

Gertrude is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

  • In English, from Germanic elements meaning 'spear' + 'strength'

    as a nameBaby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…

  • In English, A female given name from the Germanic languages.

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • In French, Du germanique ger « lance » et trut « force »; sainte Gertrude, invoquée pour la gorge et les suffocations.

    as a nameDictionnaire généalogique des prénoms

  • In French, Du germanique *ger* « lance » + *trud* « force ».

    as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)

  • In French, Origine germanique, signifie « lance fidèle ».

    as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)

Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.

Notable people with this name

(measured from records)
1860188019001920Gertrude Bell, b. 1868Gertrude Stein, b. 1874Gertrude Elion, b. 1918
  • Gertrude Bellb. 1868GBBritish traveller, writer, mountaineer, politician, archaeologist and spy (1868–1926)
  • Gertrude Steinb. 1874USAmerican author (1874–1946)
  • Gertrude Elionb. 1918USAmerican biochemist and pharmacologist (1918–1999)

The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).

How to address them

(machine-generated)
InformalHi Gertrude,

A formal English salutation is built on the surname, so it needs a full name — on its own, a first name only supports the informal form.

Evidence

(measured from records)

69 registers and reference works attest this spelling, across 43 countries.

Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.

Frequently asked questions

What does the name Gertrude mean, and where does it come from?
Germanic ‘spear strength’; used in Ireland to anglicise Grania. Recorded by Irish first names.
Is Gertrude a male or female name?
Gertrude is used for both men and women, depending on the country. National registers that list names by sex disagree: United States (Census Bureau, 2020): listed as female; Netherlands (Meertens NVB): listed as female; France (INSEE, 1972): listed as female; Finland (DVV): listed under both sexes. We don't publish a percentage split.
Which countries have the most people named Gertrude?
In the United States, the national register counted about 21 thousand people named Gertrude, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled gertrude. After it come United Kingdom, Nigeria, South Africa and Canada; the country table on this page ranks them.
What are other forms of the name Gertrude?
In the etymology graph, Gertrud, Gertrudis and Gertrudes are forms of the same name in other languages; Trudy, Trudi and Trudie are recorded short or pet forms.
How do you pronounce Gertrude?
In English /ˈɡɝtɹud/ (Wiktionary).
How common is the name Gertrude?
In the United States, the national register counted 20,978 people named Gertrude in 2020, about 1 in 16 thousand residents.
How common is Gertrude compared with other names?
In the United States, Gertrude is the 613th most common given name of 2,815,431 given names recorded there.

What do you want to know about Gertrude?

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Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/gertrude

The payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.

About this data

measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated

These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.

Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.

Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.

Cite this page Mondonomo, “Gertrude” — the 613th most common given name in United States. Data snapshot 2026-10-13.

See how Gertrude parses inside a full name →