Gerda
given name · Latin script
Meaning, in English: from Germanic element meaning 'spear' or 'enclosure'
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/ɡəɐda/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Gerda is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the Netherlands than in any other country.
- NLNetherlands1 in 879(measured from records)
- USUnited States1 in 130K
- DKDenmark1 in 1.4K
carrying the name, as counted by each country's national register. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- Netherlands (measured from records)
- Sources
- 222 (measured from records)
- 1 in 879 (inferred from the name graph)
19,663 people
Highest-authority source
Netherlands
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
from Germanic element meaning 'spear' or 'enclosure'
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 19 languages in the etymology graph.
How Gerda is read(measured from records)
Gerda is one spelling over 4 language communities, and the dictionaries record it differently in 3 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.
- German53%
short form with ger- 'spear'
as a nameDeutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung
- English23%
from Germanic element meaning 'spear' or 'enclosure'
as a nameBaby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…
A female given name from the Germanic languages occasionally used in English, mostly around 1900.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- Dutch7.8%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Gerda in Dutch.
- Danish7.2%
a female given name of Old Norse origin
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
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 We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.
Often considered alongside
Names that people choosing a name often weigh against Gerda, 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)
Gerda 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 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NL Netherlands | 19,663 | 1 in 879 | 20K | Gerda | 61 |
| DK Denmark | 4,304 | 1 in 1.4K | 4.3K | — | 2 |
| SE Sweden | 3,273 | 1 in 3.1K | 3.3K | — | 10 |
| US United States | 2,568 | 1 in 130K | 2.6K | Gerda | 222 |
| PL Poland | 1,266 | 1 in 30K | 1.3K | — | 1 |
| LV Latvia | 653 | 1 in 2.9K | 654 | — | 10 |
| NO Norway | 420 | 1 in 13K | 1.4K | — | 16 |
19,663 people counted by Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (all-time BRP bearer counts, 2018). 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; Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (all-time BRP bearer counts, 2018); Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts); Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population); SSB PxWebApi — Persons/Last names by year (StatBank tables 10501/12891); SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population); dane.gov.pl — PESEL given names (first + second name position, 2026-01-20); dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names); PMLP — Personu vārdi (given names in population register); PMLP — Personvārdu meklētājs (per-name population-register lookup). 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)
Gerda is also recorded in 2 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In French, Origine germanique, signifie « lance précieuse »; forme féminine allemande de Gérard.
as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
In French, Du germanique *ger* « lance » + *-hild* « combat » ou forme courte de noms en Ger-.
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)
- Gerda Gottliebb. 1885FRDanish artist (1885-1940)
- Gerdy Troostb. 1904DEnot in their usual nameGerman art dealer, purchaser for Linz and personal adviser in art matters to Hitler.; architect
- Gerda Bormannb. 1909DEwife of Martin Bormann (1909-1946)
- Gerda Tarob. 1910DEGerman photographer, best known for her reporting on the Spanish Civil War (1910–1937)
- Gerda Christianb. 1913DEpersonal secretary of Adolf Hitler (1913–1997)
- Gerda Lernerb. 1920USAustrian-American women's history scholar (1920-2013)
- Gerda Steinhoffb. 1922DENazi concentration camp guard (1922–1946)
- Gerda Weissmann Kleinb. 1924PLauthor, historian, speaker and Holocaust survivor (1924–2022)
- Gerda Hasselfeldtb. 1950DEGerman politician and president of the German Red Cross
- Gerda Weissensteinerb. 1969ITItalian bobsledder and luger
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 76 sources across 38 countries.
Reference works 5
- 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)
- Rymut, Słownik nazwisk współcześnie w Polsce używanych (10 vols, IJP PAN, Kraków 1992–1994) — every Polish surname in the PESEL register at the end of 1990, with bearer counts nationally and per voivodeship1990
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
- What does the name Gerda mean, and where does it come from?
- from Germanic element meaning 'spear' or 'enclosure' Recorded by Baby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular….
- Is Gerda a male or female name?
- Gerda 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 Gerda?
- In the etymology graph, Gerdina is a form of the same name in other languages.
- How do you pronounce Gerda?
- A machine transcription gives /ɡəɐda/ (IPA) for German.
- In which country does Gerda have the most bearers?
- In the Netherlands, the national register counted about 20 thousand people named Gerda, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled gerda.
- Where is Gerda most common?
- Gerda is densest in the Netherlands, where the national register counts about 1 in 879 people carrying it.
- How common is the name Gerda?
- In the Netherlands, the national register counted 19,663 people named Gerda, about 1 in 879 residents.
What do you want to know about Gerda?
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/gerdaThe 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, “Gerda”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.