Gertrude (given name)

Gertrude (also spelled Gertrud) is a feminine given name which is derived from Germanic roots that meant "spear" and "strength". "Trudy", originally a diminutive of "Gertrude," has developed into a name in its own right.

Gertrude

Pronunciation	/ˈɡɜːrtruːd/
Gender	Female
Origin
Word/name	Germanic
Meaning	derived from words meaning "spear" and "strength"
Other names
Related names	Gertrud, Gjertrud, Gertraud, Geertruida, Geltrude, Gertrudis, Gertrudes, Kerttu, Gertruda, Geirþrúður, Trude, Gerda, Kärt

In German-speaking countries, Gertraud (pronounced Ger-trowt) is a familiar variation of the name.

"Gartred" is a rare variation (attested in Daphne du Maurier's novel The King's General, set in 17th-century Cornwall, England).^[1][2]

"Gertruda" is a rare variation used in the Soviet Union as an abbreviation of Geroy truda (the Hero of Labour).^[3]

People

A–D

• Gertrude Abercrombie (1909–1977), American painter based in Chicago
• Gertrud Adelborg (1853–1942), Swedish suffragist
• Gertrud Ahlgren (1782–1874), Swedish folk healer
• Gertrude Alderfer (1931–2018), American professional baseball player
• Gertrude Ansell (1861–1932), British suffragette, animal rights activist and businesswoman
• Gertrude Appleyard (1865–1917), British archer
• Gertrude Aretz (1889–1938), German historian and publisher
• Lillian Gertrud Asplund (1906–2006), American last survivor of the sinking of the RMS Titanic––
• Gertrude Astor (1887–1977), American motion-picture character actress
• Gertrude Atherton (1857–1948), American writer
• Gertrude Aubauer (born 1951), Austrian journalist and politician
• Gertraud Auinger-Oberzaucher (born 1971), Austrian politician
• Gertrud Bacher (born 1971), retired Italian heptathlete
• Gertrude Bacon (1874–1948), aeronautical pioneer and writer with contributions in astronomy and botany
• Gertrud Baer (1890–1981), one of the founders of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom
• Gertrude Bambrick (1897–1974), American silent-film actress
• Gertrude Baniszewski (1929–1990), American murderer
• Gertrud Bäumer (1873–1954), German politician and feminist
• Gertrude Bell, (1868–1926), archaeologist and spy
• Gertrude Barrows Bennett (1883–1948), American writer of fantasy and science fiction
• Gertrude Berg (1894–1966), American actress and screenwriter
• Gertrude Bernard (1906–1986), Mohawk woman and companion of Grey Owl
• Gertrud Bing (1892–1964), German scholar and director of the Warburg Institute
• Gertrude Blanch (1897–1996), American mathematician
• Gertrude Bloede (1845–1905), American poet
• Gertrude Blom (1901–1993), Swiss journalist, social anthropologist and documentary photographer
• Gertrude Elizabeth Blood (1857–1911), Irish-born journalist, author, playwright, and editor
• Gertrude Bonnin (1876–1938), Sioux writer, editor, musician, teacher and political activist
• Gertrud Bürgers-Laurenz (1874- 959), German flower and portrait painter
• Gertrude Bryan (1888–1976), stage actress on Broadway
• Gertrude Caton–Thompson (1888–1985), English archaeologist
• Gertrude Chataway (1866–1951), child-friend of English author Lewis Carroll
• Gertrude Chibagu, Zimbabwean politician
• Gertrude Claire (1852–1928), American stage and silent-film actress
• Gertrud Cohn (1876–1942), German victim of the Nazi regime
• Gertrude Colburn (1886–1968), American dancer and sculptor
• Gertrude Cosgrove (1882–1962), wife of Sir Robert Cosgrove, twice elected as Premier of Tasmania
• Gertrude Courtenay, Marchioness of Exeter (before 1504–1558), a lady at the court of Henry VIII of England
• Gertrude Mary Cox (1900–1978), American statistician
• Gertrude Crain (1911–1996), American publishing executive
• Gertrude Crampton (1909–1996), American children's writer and teacher
• Gertrude Denman, Baroness Denman (1884–1954), British women's rights activist
• Gertrud Hedwig Anna Dohm (1855–1942), German actress
• Gertrud Dorka (1893–1976), German archaeologist, prehistorian and museum director
• Gertrude Dunn (1933–2004), American professional baseball player

E–N

• Gertrude Ederle (1905–2003), American competitive swimmer
• Gertrude B. Elion (1918–1999), American biochemist and pharmacologist
• Gertrude Elles (1872–1960), British geologist known for her work on graptolites
• Gertrude Falk (1925–2008), American physiologist
• Gertrude Franklin (1858–1913), American singer and music educator
• Gertrud Fridh (1921–1984), Swedish stage and film actress
• Gertrude Gabl (1948–1976), Austrian alpine skier
• Gertrude the Great (1256 – c. 1302), also known as Saint Gertrude of Helfta, German Benedictine nun, mystic, and theologian
• Gertrud Grunow (1870–1944), first woman teacher at the Bauhaus art school
• Gertrud Hanna (1876–1944), German activist and politician
• Gertrude Healy (1894–1984), Australian violinist, educator
• Gertrude Himmelfarb (1922–2019), American historian
• Gertrud von Hindenburg (1860–1921), German noblewoman and wife of Paul von Hindenburg
• Gertrude Jekyll (1843–1932), British horticulturist, garden designer, artist, and writer
• Gertraud Junge (1920–2002), Adolf Hitler's last private secretary
• Gertrude Kleinová (1918–1976), Czech three-time table tennis world champion
• Gertrud Koch (1924–2016), German resistance fighter
• Gertrud Kolmar (1894–1943), German lyric poet and writer
• Gertrud Kraus (1901–1977), Israeli pioneer of modern dance
• Gertrude Kuh (1893–1977), American landscape architect
• Gertrude Lane (d. 1953), American trade unionist
• Gertrude Battles Lane (1874–1941), American editor
• Gertrude Lawrence (1898–1952), Gertrude Alexandra Dagmar Lawrence Klasen. English actress, singer, dancer and performer
• Gertrud Leutenegger (1948–2025), German-speaking Swiss writer
• Gertrude Rachel Levy (1884–1966), author and cultural historian
• Gertrude Golda Lowy (1887–1982), English suffragette
• Gertrud Luckner (1900–1995), German Christian resister against Nazism
• Gertrud Månsson (1866–1935), Swedish politician, the first woman in the Stockholm city council
• Gertrud Elisabeth Mara (1749–1833), German operatic soprano
• Frances Gertrude McGill (1882–1959), pioneering Canadian forensic pathologist and criminologist
• Sarah Gertrude Millin (1889–1968), South African author
• Gertrude Mongella (born 1945), Tanzanian politician
• Gertrude Morgan (1900–1980), African-American artist, musician, poet and preacher
• Gertrude Comfort Morrow (ca. 1888–1983), American architect
• Gertrude Nafe (1883 – 1971), American teacher, essayist, and Communist short-story writer
• Gertrude Neumark (1927–2010), American physicist
• Gertrude of Nivelles (c. 628–659), seventh-century abbess, co-founder of the Abbey of Nivelles located in present-day Belgium

O–Z

• Gertrud Orff (1914–2000), one of the first German music therapists
• Gertrud Otto (1895–1970), German art historian
• Gertrude Clare Owens (1887–1963), Superior General of the Sisters of Providence of Saint Mary-of-the-Woods, Indiana
• Gertrud Pätsch (1910–1994), German ethnologist and philologist
• Gertrud Pålson-Wettergren (1897–1991), Swedish mezzo-soprano
• Gertrude Penhall (1846–1929), American civic leader and clubwoman
• Gertrude Pridgett Rainey (1882–1939), better known as Ma Rainey, blues singer
• Gertrud von Puttkamer (1881–1944), German erotic writer
• Gertrud Rask (1673–1735), first wife of the Danish-Norwegian missionary to Greenland, Hans Egede
• Gertrud Rittmann (1908–2005), German composer and music arranger in the United States
• Gertrude Sawyer (1895–1996), American architect
• Gertrude Scharff Goldhaber (1911–1998), German-born Jewish-American nuclear physicist
• Gertrud Schoenberg (1898–1967), second wife of Austrian composer Arnold Schoenberg
• Gertrud Scholtz-Klink (1902–1999), fervent Nazi Party (NSDAP) member in Nazi Germany
• Gertrud Schüpbach (born 1950), Swiss-American molecular biologist
• Gertrud Seidmann (1919–2013), Austrian-British linguist and jewelry historian
• Gertrud Skomagers (died 1556), Danish alleged witch
• Gertrúd Stefanek (born 1959), Hungarian Olympic fencer
• Gertrude Stein (1874–1946), American novelist, poet, playwright, and art collector
• Gertrude Story (1929–2014), Canadian writer and radio broadcaster
• Gertrude Strohm (1843–1927), American author, compiler, game designer
• Gertrud Szabolcsi (1923–1993), Hungarian biochemist
• Gertrude Townend, British nurse and suffragette
• Gertrude Unruh (1925–2021), German politician
• Gertrude Vachon (1962–2010), better known as Luna Vachon, American professional wrestler
• Gertrude Vaile (1878–1954), American social worker
• Gertrude Chandler Warner (1890–1979), American children's author
• Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–1942), American sculptor, art patron and collector
• Gertrude Walton Donahey (1908–2004), American politician
• Gertrude Weil (1879–1971), American activist in women's suffrage, labor reform, and civil rights
• Gertraud Winkelvoss (1917–1981), German neo-Nazi politician
• Gertrud Wolle (1891–1952), German film actress

Fictional characters

• Gertrude, from William Shakespeare's play Hamlet, is Hamlet's mother and Queen of Denmark
• Gertrud Barkhorn, from the anime/manga series Strike Witches
• Gertrude Gadwall, a member of Disney's Duck family
• Gertrude Robinson, the deceased previous Head Archivist in the podcast The Magnus Archives

See also

• Gertrude (disambiguation), for a list of fictional characters and people known by only one name
• Gertrudis
• Geertruida