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
Leonard through the years
  1. 1880
    First SSA year
    Already #78 among boys, with 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, its best rank.
  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.