Walter

//ˈwɒltə// name

name ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Proper Noun
  1. 1
    A male given name from the Germanic languages.

    "Whitmore. And so am I; my name is Walter Whitmore. / How now! why start'st thou? what! doth death affright? Suffolk. Thy name affrights me, in whose sound is death. / A cunning man did calculate my birth, / And told me that by Water I should die. / Yet let not this make thee be bloody-minded; / Thy name is - Gaultier, being rightly sounded."

  2. 2
    A surname.

    "Prof Barbara Walter notes in her book How Civil Wars Start that two conditions are key: ethnic factionalism and anocracy – when a country is neither fully democratic nor fully autocratic."

  3. 3
    An unincorporated community in Cullman County, Alabama, United States.
  4. 4
    A township in Lac qui Parle County, Minnesota, United States.

Synonyms

All synonyms
bruno walter

Example

More examples

"Walter was taken aback by John's cruel insult."

Etymology

A Germanic name, from Middle English Walter, from Old Northern French Waltier, from Frankish *Waltheri (compare Old High German Waltheri, which see for more details), from Proto-West Germanic *Waldahari, from Proto-Germanic *Waldaharjaz, from *waldą (“ruler”) + *harjaz (“army, host”). Related to Old English Waldhere. Compare herald and Harold, in which these elements are reversed.

Related phrases

Waltman Walter syndrome

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.