Meaning and history
Gertrude means “spear of strength,” from the Old German elements ger, meaning “spear,” and drud, meaning “strength.” Saint Gertrude the Great was a 13th-century nun and mystical writer from Thuringia, and the name was probably brought to England by settlers from the Low Countries in the 15th century. Shakespeare used it for Hamlet’s mother in Hamlet (1600), and another notable bearer was the American writer Gertrude Stein (1874–1946).
20062006: 15 births, rank #7,868
2007: 18 births, rank #7,092
2008: 16 births, rank #7,742
2009: 8 births, rank #12,429
2010: 17 births, rank #7,217
20112011: 17 births, rank #7,118
2012: 17 births, rank #7,144
2013: 18 births, rank #6,729
2014: 20 births, rank #6,207
2015: 26 births, rank #5,127
20162016: 36 births, rank #4,083
2017: 26 births, rank #5,045
2018: 25 births, rank #5,152
2019: 34 births, rank #4,162
2020: 32 births, rank #4,263
20212021: 30 births, rank #4,507
2022: 32 births, rank #4,378
2023: 31 births, rank #4,454
2024: 29 births, rank #4,669
20252025: 17 births, rank #6,546
Gertrude moved from #841 to #975 for girls between 1964 and 1965. Its highest annual birth count came in 1917, with 6,300 births.