Brunhilde
given name · Latin script
Meaning, in German: A shieldmaiden and valkyrie in Germanic mythology, a main character in the Nibelungenlied, Völsunga saga, and some poems of the Poetic Edda
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/bʁançɪldə/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Brunhilde is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Germany than in any other country.
- DEGermany≈1 in 4.6K(inferred from the name graph)
- USUnited States1 in 871K
- ATAustria≈1 in 27K
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- Germany (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 110 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 4.6K (inferred from the name graph)
≈17,000 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Germany, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
Teutonic; an armed warrior maiden; name of a warrior queen in Germanic legend.
Sources 1
- Baby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…
Attested across 10 languages in the etymology graph.
How Brunhilde is read(measured from records)
Brunhilde is one spelling over 2 language communities, and the dictionaries record it differently in 2 of them. Each row is what a source recorded for that language, beside the share of this name’s records the language holds. No single row is the name’s meaning.
- German80%
A shieldmaiden and valkyrie in Germanic mythology, a main character in the Nibelungenlied, Völsunga saga, and some poems of the Poetic Edda.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- English12%
Teutonic; an armed warrior maiden; name of a warrior queen in Germanic legend.
as a nameBaby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…
German legendary heroine
as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names
The share is ours — how much of this name’s records each language holds. The sense beside it is the source’s, quoted and credited, including where it names a gender. We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Brunhilde 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.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DE Germany | #618 | ≈17,000 est. | ≈1 in 4.6K | 1 | Brunhilde | 110 |
| US United States | — | 382 | 1 in 871K | 379 | Brunhilde | 83 |
| AT Austria | — | ≈330 est. | ≈1 in 27K | 3 | Brunhilde | 24 |
| ZA South Africa | — | ≈230 est. | ≈1 in 248K | — | Brunhilde | 13 |
| NL Netherlands | — | 170 | 1 in 102K | 165 | Brunhilde | 10 |
| NA Namibia | — | ≈61 est. | ≈1 in 43K | 1 | — | 3 |
| CH Switzerland | — | ≈52 est. | ≈1 in 163K | — | Brunhilde | 13 |
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: the de-leipzig-vornamen register; Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; Statistik Austria — STATatlas Vornamen WFS (per-name time series 1984–2024); Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (all-time BRP bearer counts, 2018); ECN Government Gazette 8791 — 2025 local authority candidates. 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 recorded senses(measured from records)
Brunhilde is also recorded in 3 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In nrm, a female given name from the Germanic languages
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Latvian, Franku karaliene ("Brunichilde" ap 534. g. - 613. g.), Austrāzijas karaļa Sigeberta I sieva, vestgotu karaļa meita, kas pēc vīra nāves valdīja Austrāzijā (no 575. g.), Burgundijā (no 593. g.), mēģināja apvienot franku valsti; 613. g. notiesāta uz nāvi, piesienot pie mežonīga zirga astes
as a wordTēzaurs.lv (Dictionary and Thesaurus of Latvian, AiLab / LU MII)
In Latvian, Nībelungu teikas varone, ko Burgundijas karalis Gunters ar viltu ieguva par sievu pēc tam, kad Zigfrīds viņa vietā cīnījās un uzvarēja Brunhildi
as a wordTēzaurs.lv (Dictionary and Thesaurus of Latvian, AiLab / LU MII)
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)
- Brunhilde Pomselb. 1911DEGerman broadcaster; personal secretary to Joseph Goebbels
- Bruni Löbelb. 1920DEnot in their usual nameGerman actress (1920–2006)
- Brunhilde Peterb. 1925DEGerman politician (1925-2014)
- Brunhilde Sonntagb. 1936DEGerman music educator and composer (1936-2002)
- Brunhilde Hendrixb. 1938DEGerman sprinter (1938–1995)
- Brunhilde Müllerb. 1942DEGerman politician
- Brunhilde Baßlerb. 1945German pair skater
- Brunhilde Irberb. 1948DEGerman politician
- Brunhilde Rühlb. 1950DEGerman politician
- Brunhilde Liebrechtb. 1953DEGerman politician
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)
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)
Attested in 32 sources across 20 countries.
Reference works 4
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- Where does the name Brunhilde come from?
- Teutonic; an armed warrior maiden; name of a warrior queen in Germanic legend. Recorded by Baby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular….
- How do you pronounce Brunhilde?
- A machine transcription gives /bʁançɪldə/ (IPA) for German.
- What does the name Brunhilde mean?
- In German, A shieldmaiden and valkyrie in Germanic mythology, a main character in the Nibelungenlied, Völsunga saga, and some poems of the Poetic Edda.
- Is Brunhilde a male or female name?
- Brunhilde is a female name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
- What are other forms of the name Brunhilde?
- In the etymology graph, Brunhild and Brünhild are forms of the same name in other languages.
- In which country does Brunhilde have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 17 thousand people named Brunhilde in Germany, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled brunhilde.
- How common is the name Brunhilde?
- In the United States, the national register counted 382 people named Brunhilde in 2020, about 1 in 871 thousand residents.
- How common is Brunhilde compared with other names?
- In Germany, Brunhilde is the 618th most common given name of 156,202 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Brunhilde?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/brunhildeThe 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, “Brunhilde” — the 618th most common given name in Germany. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.