A female name. Old English Hild, probably a hypocoristic form of one of the names compounded with hild ‘war’, ‘battle’. St Hild, foundress and Abbess of Whitby (614-80), was much venerated in the Old English period and later. Hilde, Hylde (Latin Hilda) is found as a christian name until the end of the 13th C, and never died out in the neighbourhood of Whitby. The general use of the name was revived, like that of other names of Old English saints, by the Tractarians in the 19th C.

Hilde Curia Regis Rolls 1201, 1203, 1210, Hundred Rolls 1273. Hillda Hundred Rolls 1273. Hylde Werburge 1513.

Chief among the Valkyries was Hild, Hildr, Hildur, or Hiltia. In Teutonic the word means ‘battle’ and has thus passed to the principal battle-maid; from her it has descended to any maiden. In Germany, it was originally used only in combination (cf. the Ethel of those far days), as in Hildiridur, ‘battle-hastener,’ and Hildegunda, ‘battle-maid of war.’ It appeared, by itself, only in Scandinavia and in England; the princess Hildur became the abbess Hilda of Whitby, who, succeeding St. Begga, died in 680: her vision is still to be seen ‘hovering in the sunny air’ by those who have a sufficiency of faith; and her name is still a favourite about Whitby. (Yonge; Swan.)

A female name abbreviated from Everhilda; or derived from the Lombardian word ild, hild, noble.

Teutonic (feminine) - The maiden.

A Teutonic name, meaning: Battlemaid.