Baltazar
Meaning
variant of Balthazar, the traditional name of one of the three Magi; ultimately from Akkadian "Bel protect the king"
The story
Baltazar is Epiphany's name. The Gospel left the Magi anonymous; tradition later gave the three kings their names, and Balthazar became the standard one, a chain that runs back through the Babylonian Belshazzar to Akkadian, "Bel protect the king." The z-spelling is the one Portuguese kept, used alongside the older Spanish Baltasar, and in Mexico the name survives as a common surname too. Brazil's census counted 5,110 men named Baltazar, 1,294 of them born in the 1950s. The United States line climbs late for so old a name: 34 boys in the 1910s, double and triple digits through midcentury, then 472 in the 1990s, 497 in the 2000s, 323 in the 2010s, 212 so far this decade. Every January 6, across the Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking world, the kings arrive again; some of each year's babies are named for the king the usual telling credits with the myrrh.
Popularity, 1890–2024
Shape drawn from US Social Security baby-name records. Baltazar peaked in the 2000s.
See popularity in Brazil
Popularity in Brazil
5,110 people · the #2,701 first name in Brazil · about 1 in 40,000 · median age 59
Among people named Baltazar living in Brazil at the 2022 census, more were born in the 1950s than in any other decade.
Source: IBGE, Censo Demográfico 2022
The Baltazar deep dive
Whether you’re naming a baby or exploring your own name’s history, this is a personal letter, not a list: where Baltazar truly comes from, how it traveled, and what a century of records reveals. If you have grown a tree on nametree, it also considers how Baltazar fits with your family’s names and surname.
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