David Albert

(male) Biblical name, borne by the greatest of all the kings of Israel, whose history is recounted with great vividness in the first and second books of Samuel and elsewhere. As a boy he killed the giant Philistine Goliath with his slingshot. As king of Judah, and later of all Israel, he expanded the power of the Israelites and established the security of their kingdom. He was also noted as a poet, many of the Psalms being attributed to him. The Hebrew derivation of the name is uncertain; it is said by some to represent a nursery word meaning ‘darling’. It is a very popular Jewish name, but is almost equally common among Gentiles in the English-speaking world. It is particularly common in Wales and Scotland, having been borne by the patron saint of Wales (see Dewi) and by two medieval kings of Scotland.

English, French, North German, Danish, Catalan, Hungarian, Czech, Slovak, Slovenian, etc.: from the personal name Albert, composed of the Germanic elements adal ‘noble’ + berht ‘bright’, ‘famous’. The standard German form is Albrecht. This, in its various forms, was one of the most popular of all European male personal names in the Middle Ages. It was borne by various churchmen, notably St. Albert of Prague, a Bohemian prince who died a martyr in 997 attempting to convert the Prussians to Christianity; also St. Albert the Great (?1193–1280), an Aristotelian theologian and tutor of Thomas Aquinas. It was also the name of princes and military leaders, such as Albert the Bear (1100–70), Margrave of Brandenburg. In more recent times it has been adopted as a Jewish family name.