Leonard

Where Leonard comes from

From Old French Leonard, name of a 6th century Frankish saint, from Old High German leo (“lion”) or Old High German liut (“person”) and hart (“hard”). As a surname, also used as an anglicisation of Irish Ó Leannáin (Lennon).
— Wiktionary's entry for Leonard
  • Germanic
  • 2 syllables
Along the way
  1. 1880
    First SSA year
    Already #78 among boys — 200 babies in the first year on record.
  2. 1918
    Leonard Bernstein born
    American conductor and composer
  3. 1923
    Peak, #37
    5,486 babies named Leonard — more than any year before or since.
  4. 1934
    Leonard Cohen born
    Canadian singer, songwriter and poet
  5. 1965
    The fade
    The first year with half the peak's births — down to #121.
In the dictionary
  • A male given name from the Germanic languages.
Namesakes
  • Leonard Cohen · Canadian singer, songwriter and poet, 1934–2016
  • Leonard Bernstein · American conductor and composer, 1918–1990
  • Leonard Nimoy · American actor, 1931–2015
  • Leonard Bloomfield · American linguist, 1887–1949
  • Leonard Susskind · American physicist, born 1940

Sources: the origin note and dictionary entry are quoted from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0); the namesakes come from Wikidata (CC0); the milestones are worked out from the SSA record.