Trudi
Feminine · “strength”
Trudi is the back half of Gertrude, cut off in German and then respelt in America. The saint behind the long name has one of the oddest modern patronages in the calendar: she is invoked against mice and rats, and by extension has become the patron of cats.
How old is the name Trudi?
Trudi first appears in US birth records in 1938 — 87 years ago. The typical Trudi alive today was born around 1962, making them about 63 years old. About 2,800 people named Trudi are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Trudi most popular?
Trudi peaked in 1965, reaching #840 nationally. See the whole 1965 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Gertrude to Trudi
The story of Trudi
Gertrude of Nivelles was a seventh-century Frankish abbess who ran a monastery, took in travelers and was remembered for sheltering pilgrims. Medieval art shows mice running up her staff — probably because her feast fell when field mice were a problem, or because souls in purgatory were pictured as mice, and the explanations disagree. Either way she became the saint you asked about vermin, and in the twentieth century that quietly turned into being the patron of cats. German cut her name to Trude, added its own diminutive to make Trudel and Trudi, and American families wrote the last of those with an i.
Meaning
strength
The Germanic element behind the second half of Gertrude means strength; the first half is a spear. The short form carries only the strength, which is the half that survived.
How the name formed
- Gertrude
- Trude
- Trudi
Related forms: Trude · Truus · Trudy
Pronouncing Trudi
TROO-dee
Two syllables with the weight at the front. German says it the same way; the i and y spellings are identical in sound.
Nicknames for Trudi
Moderate
What the data says
146 years of official birth records
The long climb, and where it stands now
The same years in position rather than babies
- First recorded
- 1938
- Most girls named
- 1965140 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #840reached in 1965
- Change vs 2009
- −28.6%5 in 2022, from 7
Rank is a position, a count is a headcount, and they move independently — a name can hold its rank while the number of babies behind it falls. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration.
Trudi in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Trude in German — same name
- Truus in Dutch — related form
- Trudy in English — spelling variant
Trudis among us
people named Trudi are estimated to be alive in the US today
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
Questions parents actually ask
Fashion outlook
Trudi sits outside the current charts, and that is its own kind of answer: naming cycles can only date the names they carried up. A name this rare has no decade stamped on it — it cannot go out of fashion, because it was never in.
Based on 146 years of naming cycles. How we read them
The trade-off
- It is said correctly by everyone on first hearing.
- It works as a full name and as a short form of Gertrude, which gives a family two ways to use it.
- Five letters, two syllables, and nothing to explain.
- Trudy is the commoner spelling and will be written instead.
- It reads as a short form, and formal settings may look for a Gertrude that does not exist.
- It belongs firmly to the middle of the twentieth century.
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What they receive
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Trudi
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Trudis are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 2,800 people named Trudi are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Trudi in 2025?
- Trudi is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Trudi with classmates?
- Trudi will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More T names
The most-given names starting with T, all years combined.
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Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Trudi? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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