Gerlinda
Fewer than 50 women in Poland carry it, and no girls have been given it in years: most Poles will never meet a Gerlinda. The name is Germanic, built from roots that read as "gentle spear".
Gerlinda Pronunciation
Gerlinda is pronounced ger-LEEN-dah (/gɛrˈlinda/).
What Gerlinda means
Where Gerlinda comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
Gerlinda is built from two old Germanic elements. The first, ger, meant spear. The second, lind, meant soft, mild, gentle. Read together, they hand the name its meaning: gentle spear.
That pairing sounds like a contradiction, and it is. A weapon and a softness share one name. The spear half was common in Germanic coinages, and the same ger sits inside Gerhard and Gertruda. The lind half surfaces in names like Rozalinda and Belinda, where it holds the same sense of tenderness. The element had a second life too. Lind also named linden wood, light and flexible, the wood cut into shields, which is where the reading of softness came from.
The name settled into German usage and stayed there. It never grew a Polish nickname or a shortened form. On a class register or an urząd form, Gerlinda appears whole, with nothing clipped off. What a bearer holds is the old compound intact: spear and gentleness, kept in one word that still means gentle spear.
When Gerlinda celebrates name day
Gerlinda appears 2 times in the Polish name day calendar, never as a main name. The first of these dates is 26 February.
Rarer dates. Only the most complete calendars add this name on these days. Most skip them, so hardly anyone celebrates then.
How many people are named Gerlinda
1 in 479656 women in Poland is named Gerlinda. 47 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #5533 among female names.
Gerlinda as a middle name
Gerlinda is a first name for 47 women in Poland and a middle name for another 8, an 85/15 split. In the women's middle-name ranking it sits 2759th, between Georgie (8) and Golda (8).
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#2757 Georgeta8
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#2758 Georgie8
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#2759 Gerlinda8
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#2760 Golda8
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#2761 Graziella8