Bert (name) - Names Containing berht

Names Containing berht

There is no evidence of the berht element in Germanic personal names prior to the 6th century. It is mostly unknown in names of Goths, Vandals, Frisians or Norse, and only rarely occurs in names of Saxons. By contrast, it is very common among Anglo-Saxons, Lombards, Franks and Bavarians. The popularity of the element in certain areas may be related to religion, similar to the wolf element being due to the worship of Wodanaz, the names with berht can be considered theophoric, in connection with the goddess Perchta. The full form of Old High German beraht is reduced in two ways, by omission of either the second (berht, perht, pert) or the first vowel (braht, praht, brat, prat, brecht). Early attestations of such names include Ethberictus, Garberictus, and Transberictus mentioned in Hontheim's Historia Trevirensis s. a. 699. Pardessus' Diplomata s. a. 745 has Berdbert as a rare example of a reduplicated Germanic name. Förstemann counts 369 names with final -bert(a), of which 61 are feminine.

Given names that remain in modern use include:

1. names with -bert as final element
   • Albert, Cuthbert, Dogbert, Dagobert, Dilbert, Elbert, Egbert, Engelbert, Æthelberht, Filbert, Gerbert, Gilbert, Herbert, Hubert, Humbert, Norbert, Robert, Tolbert
2. names with Bert- as first element
   • Bertram, Berthold, Bertrand