Hedwig

Spellings & scripts●

Locally spelled Jadwiga in GB United Kingdom, AU Australia, CA Canada and 2 more.

Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records; ○ marks a model's transliteration. Click a spelling to open its page.

Meaning & origin●

Attested across 19 languages in the etymology graph.

Languages●

Language is read off each record's context, not declared by the bearer; a share is of all records for this spelling.

Other names spelled this way◐

Hedwig is also recorded as 2 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

• French given name5.2K records spelled Hedwig22 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in France, United States, Brazil, Spain

  Languages: French, Spanish, Portuguese

  Also written Edwige, Jadwiga, Édwige, Edwigé, Edwìge

• French given name2.1K records spelled Hedwig5 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in France, Belgium, United States, Spain

  Languages: French, Catalan

  Also written Hedwige, Heilwig, Hédwige

51 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Other recorded senses●

Hedwig is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

• In French, Germanic hadu + wig, 'battle' + 'fight'; St Hedwig.

  as a name·Dictionnaire généalogique des prénoms

• In German, a female given name from Proto-Germanic, borne by a 12th/13th century Silesian saint

  as a word·kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

• In German, zu germ. hadu ‚Kampf‘ + -wig ‚Kampf‘; belegt als Schreibvariante mit ch/g-Variation im Auslaut nach i (Hedwig/Herdwig/Herwig).

  as a name·Deutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 2: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen II, Konsonantismus

• In German, from hathu 'battle' + wīg 'fight'

  as a name·Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung

• Germanic: ‘battle strife’.

  as a name·A concise dictionary of first names

Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.

Over time●

US SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) — 83 years between 1880–1968. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.

Notable people with this name●

• Hedwig of Saxonyb. 922mother of Hugh Capet
• Hedwig of Silesiab. 1174DEDuchess of Silesia (1174–1243)
• Jadwiga I of Polandb. 1374HUnot in their usual nameQueen of Poland (1384–1399)
• Hedvig Eleonora of Holstein-Gottorpb. 1636SEnot in their usual namequeen of Sweden (1636-1715)
• Marie of Prussiab. 1825DEnot in their usual nameQueen consort of Bavaria; youngest child of Prince Wilhelm of Prussia and Princess Marie Anna of Hesse-Homburg
• Hedwig Dohmb. 1831DEGerman feminist, writer, and opinion journalist (1831–1919)
• Hedy Lamarrb. 1914ATnot in their usual nameAustrian-American actress and co-inventor of an early technique for spread spectrum communications and frequency hopping (1914-2000)
• Gerda Lernerb. 1920USnot in their usual nameAustrian-American women's history scholar (1920-2013)
• Marlene Schmidtb. 1937DEnot in their usual nameGerman actress
• Marie Christine, Princess Michael of Kentb. 1945ATnot in their usual namewife of Prince Michael of Kent

The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).

Evidence●

Register rows as of the 2026-09-12 data build · 255 rows in the corpus for this spelling.

Frequently asked questions

How common is the name Hedwig?

We estimate roughly 268 thousand people bear Hedwig (counting its spellings and scripts) across 10 countries in our records.

In which country does Hedwig have the most bearers?

We estimate about 261 thousand people bear Hedwig in Poland, more than in any other country in our records, where it is most often spelled hedwig.

Where is Hedwig most common?

Hedwig is densest in Poland, where the national register counts about 1 in 147 people carrying it.

How common is Hedwig compared with other names?

In Germany, Hedwig is the 460th most common given name of 154,506 given names recorded there.

Is Hedwig a male or female name?

Hedwig is a female name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.

What does the name Hedwig mean?

Recorded meaning: from Germanic hād-/hadu- 'battle' + wīg 'fight'; later influenced by wīh 'holy'