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A name. A world of connections.
“favor, grace”
No sourced pronunciation yet
01 / Meaning & origin
Holda is a feminine given name documented in Old High German and Hungarian. English Wiktionary records the meaning “favor, grace”.
Meaning: “favor, grace”
From holda (“favor, grace”), cognate with Old English, Old High German, and German hold, English hold (“faithful, gracious”), Old High German huldī (“friendliness”), Old English hyldu (“grace, favor”) First attested in 839
02 / Across borders
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03 / By the numbers
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04 / Through time
Passages quoted verbatim from public-domain reference works. They reflect the scholarship of their time, not current consensus, and may use obsolete spellings.
HOLDA— “gentle”
That Frau Bertha is an impersonation of the Epiphany there seems little doubt, but it appears that there was an original mythical Bertha, who absorbed the brightened night, or if the bright night gave a new title to the old mythical Holda, Holla, Hulla, Huldr (the faithful, or the muffled), a white spinning lady, who is making her feather-bed when it snows. She, too, brings presents at the year’s end; rewards good spinners, punishes idle ones, has a long nose, wears a blue…
That Frau Bertha is an impersonation of the Epiphany there seems little doubt, but it appears that there was an original mythical Bertha, who absorbed the brightened night, or if the bright night gave a new title to the old mythical Holda, Holla, Hulla, Huldr (the faithful, or the muffled), a white spinning lady, who is making her feather-bed when it snows. She, too, brings presents at the year’s end; rewards good spinners, punishes idle ones, has a long nose, wears a blue gown and white veil, and drives through the fields in a car with golden wheels. Scandinavia calls her Hulla, or Huldr the propitious; Northern Germany, Holda, probably by adaptation to _hold_ (mild). Franconia and Thuringia recognized both Holda and Berchta; in Alsatia, Swabia, Switzerland, Bavaria, and Austria, Berchta alone prevails.
Yonge, History of Christian Names (1884), Part IV, Chapter VII (Names From Holy Days), Section III (The Epiphany) · Public domain (Project Gutenberg)
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06 / Behind the facts
Review status: Source-reported — no editorial review recorded yet. Last data change 2026-10-15.
Wiktionary text: CC BY-SA 4.0. Wikidata: CC0. Commons recordings retain their individual file licences. Complete attribution is available in each group above and alongside each chart.
