Given name & surname · also Germanic
Lothar
“fame”·“army”
Lothar is a masculine given name from Frankish, ultimately from Proto-West Germanic. It is used in German.
Original GermanChlothar
Meaning & origin
What it means
Lothar is built from elements meaning “fame” and “army”.
Adapted from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Where it comes from
An origin associated with this spelling is Germanic.
How it developed
From Frankish Ludher, from Proto-West Germanic *Hlūdhari.
Adapted from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0)
The story
Published U.S. birth records include this spelling as early as 1927. This is the earliest published observation available here, rather than a date for the name’s origin.
From dated birth records
Lothar through the years
- Babies since 1880
- 68
- 68 boys · 0 girls
- Most popular year
- 1929
- 10 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 5 in 1968. Later missing counts do not mean the name went unused. Its largest published annual count for boys was 10 in 1929. Published U.S. population figures for this spelling include 585 as a first name in 2020.
From Social Security birth records and U.S. Census name counts for this exact spelling. Other spellings are counted separately.
Lothar’s family of names
In East Central German usage, Lothar has a diminutive in LOTH. In German usage, Lothar shares a linguistic root with the English form Chlothar. Lothar has a related form in Lathair.
Inner ring: spellings · middle: nicknames and forms · outer: across languages.
Around the world
Lothar has relatives in 10 languages. Lines run from its Proto-Germanic roots to each of them.
9 related names in 10 languages. Point at a dot, or tab to the map and use the arrow keys.
Nicknames & forms 9
Diminutives, pet forms, short forms and variants used alongside the name.
- Chlotharvariant · German, English
- Lotarvariant · German, Polish
- Lothariovariant · Italian
- Lothdiminutive · gmw-ecg
- Lotharingvariant
- Lothurvariant
- Lothairvariant · English
- Lothervariant
Show 1 moreShow fewer
Spellings & scripts 1
The same name written differently, including transliterations into other scripts.
Across languages 7
Equivalents and cognates in other languages, plus older forms it grew from.
See also 2
Names our sources mention alongside this one. They are related in story or meaning, not forms of this name.
People named Lothar
- Lothar MatthäusGerman association football player, manager, and pundit (born 1961)
- Lothar de MaizièreGerman politician and the last Prime Minister of the GDR (born 1940)
- Lothar RendulicGerman general (1887-1971)
- Lothar EmmerichGerman association football player and manager (1941-2003)
- Lothar BiskyGerman politician (1941–2013)
- Lothar von RichthofenGerman flying ace (1894–1922)
- Lothar CollatzGerman mathematician (1910–1990)
- Lothar KurbjuweitEast German footballerborn 1950
- Lothar SpäthGerman politician of the CDU (1937–2016)
Listed by how widely each person is written about, which says nothing about the name itself.
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