Gustav

Where Gustav comes from

A common royal name in Sweden, from Old Swedish Gøtstaf, from Old Norse Gautr (“Geat/Goth”) + stafr (“staff”). The oldest record in Sweden dates back to the year 1225 ("Gostauus"). In Peder Swart's chronicle about Gustav Vasa dated in the mid-1500s, the name is spelled Götstaff and is assumed to mean "Staff of the Geats."
— Wiktionary's entry for Gustav
  • Germanic
Along the way
  1. 1860
    Gustav Mahler born
    Austrian late-Romantic composer
  2. 1862
    Gustav Klimt born
    Austrian symbolist painter
  3. 1880
    First SSA year
    Already #286 among boys — 33 babies in the first year on record.
  4. 1883
    Peak, #240
    44 babies named Gustav — more than any year before or since.
  5. 1890
    The fade
    The first year with half the peak's births — down to #389.
In the dictionary
  • A male given name from the Germanic languages.
Namesakes
  • Gustav Mahler · Austrian late-Romantic composer, 1860–1911
  • Gustav Klimt · Austrian symbolist painter, 1862–1918
  • Gustav Kirchhoff · German physicist, 1824–1887
  • Gustav Ludwig Hertz · German physicist, 1887–1975
  • Gustav Stresemann · German politician, statesman, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, 1878–1929

Sources: the origin note and dictionary entry are quoted from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0); the namesakes come from Wikidata (CC0); the milestones are worked out from the SSA record.