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.

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).

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

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 (1889–1838), 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
 * 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 Claire (1852–1928), American stage and silent-film actress
 * 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 Lawrence (1898–1952), Gertrude Alexandra Dagmar Lawrence Klasen. English actress, singer, dancer and performer
 * Gertrude Rachel Levy (1884–1966), author and cultural historian
 * 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