Given name & surname
Gottlieb
“descendant, son”·“dear, beloved”
Gottlieb is a surname from German. It is used in English, German, and Polish.
Meaning & origin
What it means
Gottlieb is built from elements meaning “descendant, son” and “dear, beloved”.
Adapted from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0)
The story
Published U.S. birth records include this spelling as early as 1880. This is the earliest published observation available here, rather than a date for the name’s origin.
From dated birth records
Gottlieb through the years
- Babies since 1880
- 320
- 320 boys · 0 girls
- Most popular year
- 1915
- 34 babies
- 2025
- 0
- Outside the ranked list
- 2021–25 vs 2016–20
- —
- Too few births to compare
By the numbers
The most recent published U.S. birth count for boys is 6 in 1933. Later missing counts do not mean the name went unused. Its largest published annual count for boys was 34 in 1915. Published U.S. population figures for this spelling include 6,282 as a surname in 2020.
From Social Security birth records and U.S. Census name counts for this exact spelling. Other spellings are counted separately.
Gottlieb’s family of names
Gottlieb shares a linguistic root with Godlef. Gottlieb has a conventional naming counterpart in Theophilus. In German usage, Gottlieb has a conventional equivalent in the Polish form Teofil.
The ring: across languages.
Around the world
Gottlieb has relatives in 3 languages. Lines run from its German roots to each of them.
5 related names in 3 languages. Point at a dot, or tab to the map and use the arrow keys.
Across languages 26
Equivalents and cognates in other languages, plus older forms it grew from.
- Amadeoequivalent
- Theophilusequivalent
- Theophilequivalent
- Amedeoequivalent
- TeofilPolish
- Teofiloequivalent
- Theofilosequivalent
- Bohumilequivalent
Show 18 moreShow fewer
See also 2
Names our sources mention alongside this one. They are related in story or meaning, not forms of this name.
People named Gottlieb
- Gottlieb DaimlerGerman engineer and industrialist (1834–1900)
- Eliel SaarinenFinnish-American architect (1873-1950)
- Gottlieb HaberlandtAustrian botanist (1854-1945)
- Gottlieb Wilhelm LeitnerAnglo-Hungarian orientalist1840–1899
- Gottlieb Conrad Christian StorrGerman naturalist1749–1821
- G. A. W. Herrich-SchäfferGerman entomologist and physician (1799–1874)
- Gottlieb Wilhelm BischoffGerman botanist, educationist and university teacher (1797-1854)
- Gottlieb Konrad PfeffelGerman writer (1736-1809)
- Gottlieb MuffatAustrian composer and organist1690–1770
Listed by how widely each person is written about, which says nothing about the name itself.
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