Walther

Walther is a masculine given name and a surname. It is a German form of Walter, which is derived from the Old High German Walthari, containing the elements wald -"power", "brightness" or "forest" and hari -"warrior".

The name was first popularized by the famous epic German hero Walther von Aquitaine and later with the Minnesänger Walther von der Vogelweide.

Given name

 * Walther Bauersfeld (1879–1959), German engineer who built the first projection planetarium
 * Walther Bothe (1891–1957), German nuclear physicist and Nobel laureate
 * Walther von Brauchitsch (1881–1948), German World War II field marshal
 * Walther Dahl (1916–1985), German World War II flying ace
 * Walther von Dyck (1856–1934), German mathematician
 * Walther Flemming (1843–1905), German biologist and a founder of cytogenetics
 * Walther Funk (1890–1960), economist and Nazi official convicted of war crimes in the Nuremberg Trials
 * Walther Hahm (1894–1951), German World War II general
 * Walther Hewel (1904–1945), German diplomat and one of Hitler's few personal friends
 * Walther Kossel (1888–1956), German physicist
 * Walther von Lüttwitz (1859–1942), German general and a leader of the unsuccessful Kapp-Lüttwitz Putsch against the Weimar Republic
 * Walther Meissner (1882–1974), German technical physicist and discoverer of the Meissner effect
 * Walther Müller (1905–1979), German physicist
 * Walther Otto Müller (1833–1887), German botanist
 * Walther Nehring (1892–1983), German World War II general
 * Walther Nernst (1864–1941), German physical chemist and physicist; Nobel laureate in chemistry
 * Walther Rathenau (1867–1922), German industrialist, politician, writer, statesman and Foreign Minister of Germany for the Weimar Republic
 * Walther Ritz (1878–1909), Swiss theoretical physicist
 * Walther Schroth (1882–1944), German World War II general
 * Walther Schwieger (1885–1917), German World War I U-boat commander who sank the Lusitania
 * Walther von Seydlitz-Kurzbach, German World War II general
 * Walther Stampfli (1884–1965), Swiss politician
 * Walther von der Vogelweide (c. 1170–c. 1230), High German lyric poet
 * Walther Wenck (1900–1982), youngest general in the German Army during World War II
 * Walther Wever (general) (1887–1936), German general, commander of the Luftwaffe and proponent of strategic bombing
 * Walther Wever (pilot) (1923–1945), German flying ace and son of the above

Surname

 * Andrea Walther (born 1970), German mathematician
 * Augustin Friedrich Walther (1688–1746), German anatomist
 * Bernhard Walther (1430–1504), German astronomer for whom a lunar crater is named
 * C. F. W. Walther (1811–1887), German-American first President of the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod and its most influential theologian
 * Carl Walther (1858–1915), German gunsmith and founder of Walther Arms
 * Christoph Walther (born 1950), German computer scientist
 * Edgar Walther (1930-2013), Swiss chess player
 * Eric Walther (born 1975), German pentathlete
 * Erich Walther (1903–1947), German World War II general
 * Frédéric Henri Walther (1761–1813), Alsatian-born general in Napoleon's army
 * George Walther Sr. (1876–1961), American inventor
 * George H. Walther (1828–1895), American politician
 * Geraldine Walther (born 1950), American violist
 * Gesine Walther (born 1962), German sprinter
 * Johann Gottfried Walther (1684–1748), German organist and composer
 * Johann Jakob Walther (composer) (1650–1704), German composer/violinist
 * Johann Jakob Walther (1600–1679), German artist and botanical illustrator
 * Johannes Walther (1860–1937), German geologist
 * Kerstin Walther (born 1961), German sprinter
 * Kirsten Walther (1933–1987), Danish actress
 * Philipp Franz von Walther (1782–1849), German doctor
 * Christoph Theodosius Walther (1699–1741), German missionary