Bodo (given name)
Bodo (variants Botho, Boto, Boddo, Potho, Boda, Puoto, etc.) is an Old High German name, also adopted in Modern German. It is in origin a short name or hypocorism for Germanic names with a first element Bod-, Puot-, reflecting the verbal root beud- "to bid, command".[1] As a monothematic name, Old High German Boto, Old Saxon Bodo, could mean "lord, commander" or alternatively "messenger" (c.f. Old English bod "command; message", boda "messenger, angel").[2] Full dithematic names with this first element (attested for the medieval period but not surviving into modern use) included Bodegisil, Bothad, Bodomar, Boderad, Poterich, Bodirid, Butwin, Potelfrid, Botolf, Podalolf, Bodenolf.[1]
The Anglo-Saxon cognate was Beda (West Saxon Bīeda, Northumbrian Bǣda, Anglian Bēda).[3]
- Middle Ages
- Bodo (deacon), 9th-century German deacon who converted to Judaism, assuming the name of Eleazar
- Bodo VII, Count of Stolberg-Wernigerode (1375-1455)
- Bodo VIII, Count of Stolberg-Wernigerode (1467-1538)
- Early Modern
- Bodo Otto (1711–1787), a Senior Surgeon of the Continental Army during the American Revolution
- Modern
- Bodo Bittner, West German bobsledder
- Bodo Ferl (born 1959), East German retired bobsledder
- Bodo Hell (born 1943), Austrian writer
- Bodo Hombach (born 1952), German politician
- Bodo Illgner (born 1967), German former football goalkeeper
- Bodo Lafferentz (1897–1974), Nazi and high-ranking SS officer
- Bodo Linnhoff (born 1948), chemical engineer
- Botho Prinz zu Sayn-Wittgenstein-Hohenstein (1927–2008), German politician
- Bodo Ramelow (born 1956), German politician
- Bodo Rudwaleit (born 1957), German former football goalkeeper
- Bodo Schmidt (born 1967), German football coach and former player
- Botho Strauß (b. 1944), German playwright
- Bodo Thyssen (1918–2004), German industrialist and medical doctor
- Bodo Tümmler (born 1943), German former middle distance runner