Bert (name)

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Bert is a hypocoristic form of a number of Germanic male given names, such as Robert, Herbert, Gilbert, Norbert, Bertram, Berthold, and Albert.

There is a large number of Germanic names ending in -bert, second in number only to those ending in -wolf (-olf, -ulf). Most of these names are early medieval and only a comparatively small fraction remains in modern use.

The element -berht has the meaning of "bright", Old English beorht/berht, Old High German beraht/bereht, ultimately from a Common Germanic *berhtaz, from a PIE root *bhereg- "white, bright". The female hypocoristic of names containing the same element is Berta.

Modern English bright itself has the same etymology, but it has suffered metathesis at an early date, already in the Old English period, attested as early as AD 700 in the Lindisfarne Gospels. The unmetathesized form disappears after AD 1000 and Middle English from about 1200 has briht universally.

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.^[1]

Given names that remain in modern use include:

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

Names abbreviated "Bert"

The following names are commonly abbreviated as "Bert":

People called Bert

Bert Abbey (1869-1962), Major League Baseball pitcher
Bert Acosta (1895-1954), record setting aviator
Bert Adams (1891-1940), professional baseball player in the early 20th century
Bert Adams (Louisiana politician) (1916-2003), Louisiana state representative in the 20th century
Bert Addinall (1921–2005), an English professional footballer.
Bert Anciaux, Belgian politician and founder and former member of Spirit (later known as the Social Liberal Party, or SLP)
Bert Assirati (1908-1990), English professional wrestler
Bert Bell (1895-1959), National Football League commissioner
Bert Berns (1929-1967), American songwriter and record producer in the 1960s
Bert Blyleven (Aalbert), b. 1951, Dutch-born MLB pitcher
Bert Bos (Gijsbert), b. 1963, Dutch computer scientist working for W3C
Bert Brecht (Bertolt), 1898–1956, German dramatist. The surname Brecht incidentally has the same etymology.
Bert Brown, former Canadian senator and retired farmer and development consultant
Bert Convy, American singer, actor and game show host
Bert Haanstra (Albert), 1916–1997, Dutch film director
Bert Hatten, b. 1927, American newspaperman and politician
Bert Kaempfert (Bertolt), 1923–1980, German orchestra leader
Bert Koenders (Albert), b. 1958, Dutch politician
Bert Lahr (1895–1967), American actor and comedian.
Bert McCracken (Robert), b. 1982, lead singer of alternative band The Used
Bert van Marwijk (Lambert), b. 1952), Dutch football player and coach
Bert Newton (Albert), b. 1938, Australian entertainer
Bert Parks, 1914-1992, actor, singer, host of Miss America from 1955-1979
Bert Sakmann (Bertold), b. 1942, winner of the 1991 Nobel Prize for Medicine
Bert Trautmann (Bernhard, properly "Bernd", and "Bert" only because English audiences had pronunciation difficulties with "Bernd"), b. 1923, football player
Bert Vaux, b. 1968, American linguist.
Bert Weckhuysen (born 1968), Belgian chemist
Bert Williams (1874-1922), one of the pre-eminent entertainers of the Vaudeville era

As a surname

Paul Bert (1833 – 1886), French physiologist
Margaret Bert (1896 – 1971), American character actress

Fictional characters

Bert (Sesame Street), a Muppet character (of Bert and Ernie) on the long-running children's television show Sesame Street
Bert Ljung, a fictional character in the Bert diaries
Bert (Mary Poppins), a Cockney chimney sweep in the book series and Disney film Mary Poppins. Played in the film by Dick Van Dyke.
Bert Raccoon, a lead character in TV series The Raccoons.

References

↑ E. Förstemann, Altdeutsches Namenbuch (1856), p. 235–254.

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