Walther
Walther is a masculine given name and a surname. It is a German form of Walter, which is derived from the Old High German Walthari, containing the elements wald -"power", "brightness" or "forest" and hari -"warrior".
The name was first popularized by the famous epic German hero Walther von Aquitaine and later with the Minnesänger Walther von der Vogelweide.
Given name
- Walther Bauersfeld, German engineer who built the first projection planetarium
- Walther Bothe, German nuclear physicist and Nobel laureate
- Walther von Brauchitsch, German World War II field marshal
- Walther Dahl, German World War II flying ace
- Walther von Dyck, German mathematician
- Walther Flemming, German biologist and a founder of cytogenetics
- Walther Funk, economist and Nazi official convicted of war crimes in the Nuremberg Trials
- Walther Hahm, German World War II general
- Walther Hewel, German diplomat and one of Hitler's few personal friends
- Walther von Klingen, Minnesänger and Nobleman from Thurgau
- Walther Kossel, German physicist
- Walther von Lüttwitz, German general and a leader of the unsuccessful Kapp-Lüttwitz Putsch against the Weimar Republic
- Walther Meissner, German technical physicist and discoverer of the Meissner effect
- Walther Müller, German physicist
- Walther Otto Müller, German botanist
- Walther Nehring, German World War II general
- Walther Nernst, German physical chemist and physicist; Nobel laureate in chemistry
- Walther Rathenau, German industrialist, politician, writer, statesman and Foreign Minister of Germany for the Weimar Republic
- Walther Ritz, Swiss theoretical physicist
- Walther Schroth, German World War II general
- Walther Schwieger, German World War I U-boat commander who sank the Lusitania
- Walther von Seydlitz-Kurzbach, German World War II general
- Walther Stampfli, Swiss politician
- Walther von der Vogelweide, High German lyric poet
- Walther Wenck, youngest general in the German Army during World War II
- Walther Wever , German general, commander of the Luftwaffe and proponent of strategic bombing
- Walther Wever , German flying ace and son of the above
Surname
- Andrea Walther, German mathematician
- Augustin Friedrich Walther, German anatomist
- Bernhard Walther, German astronomer for whom a lunar crater is named
- C. F. W. Walther, German-American first President of the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod and its most influential theologian
- Carl Walther, German gunsmith and founder of Walther Arms
- Christoph Walther, German computer scientist
- Edgar Walther, Swiss chess player
- Eric Walther, German pentathlete
- Erich Walther, German World War II general
- Frédéric Henri Walther, Alsatian-born general in Napoleon's army
- George Walther Sr., American inventor
- George H. Walther, American politician
- Geraldine Walther, American violist
- Gesine Walther, German sprinter
- Johann Gottfried Walther, German organist and composer
- Johann Jakob Walther , German composer/violinist
- Johann Jakob Walther, German artist and botanical illustrator
- Johannes Walther, German geologist
- Kerstin Walther, German sprinter
- Kirsten Walther , Danish actress
- Philipp Franz von Walther, German doctor
- Christoph Theodosius Walther, German missionary