A male name. Old German Leonhard, compound of levon (modGer löwe) ‘lion’ and hardu ‘hardy', ‘bold’. St Leonhard was a 5th-C Frankish noble, converted with Clovis, who became a hermit near Limoges and the patron saint of captives. He was a favourite medieval saint in England and France and there are 177 English churches dedicated to him. Leonard is found as a christian name in England from about 1200. It has remained in steady though not common use from that time (cf. the surnames Leonard, Lennard, &c.) until the 19th C when it gradually increased in popularity. Lyford 1655 says of it:'Leonard, of a churlish disposition; a name fit for another Nabal’.

Leonardus Curia Regis Rolls 1200, Feudal Aids 1431. Leonard Hundred Rolls 1273, Yorks Rec 1604.

‘Lion-hard,’ i. e. ‘lion-strong’, it is a hybrid from Greek and Teutonic. Leonard derives immediately from Lowenhard, the name of a C6 Frankish ‘nobleman of the Court of King Clovis’, who, ‘like that monarch,’ was ‘converted to Christianity by St. Remigius of Reims... He was eminent for austerity of life and for the charitable help he never refused to those in trouble, more especially to poor prisoners... His memory was throughout the Middle Ages venerated everywhere in Western Europe. In England, as elsewhere, many churches were dedicated in his honour’ (Benedictines).

From the Old German name Leonhard, Middle German Lenhard; from lowe(n)hard, as strong as a lion. The nickname is Len.

Teutonic (masculine) - Lion-heart.

A Greek name, meaning: Strength of a lion: lion-hearted.