Colbert (name)

Colbert is an English and French surname and given name of uncertain etymology. It is possible that it appeared independently several times throughout history. The name is recorded in England in the 11th century Domesday Book in Devon, Cheshire, and Lincolnshire.[1] This English surname was originally a given name that may have meant "cool" and "bright"; see also Bert.[2]

The name is common in English-speaking countries, particularly Ireland, but some of these families may have their origin in France, where the name is very common.

The French name perhaps has a different origin, but some linguists say it has the same origin from the Germanic words kol ("cool") and berht ("bright").[3] It is recorded in the French province of Champagne in the 15th century, where, some suggest, it is a reduced form of "Colibert", which is also attested in medieval Champagne. "Colibert" was originally a contraction of the Latin collibertus ("fellow freedman", i.e. "fellow freed slave"). It may, however, derive from an unattested Germanic given name *Colberht, or a gallicized form of the Flemish surname Koelbert. This in turn derives from a given name mentioned as Colobert in the 7th century.[4]