Balthazar (given name)

Balthazar (also spelled Balthasar, Balthassar, or Baltazar), from Akkadian 𒂗𒈗𒌑𒀫 Bel-shar-uzur, meaning "Bel protects the King" is the name commonly attributed to one of the Three Wise Men, at least in the west. Though no names are given in the Gospel of Matthew, this was one of the names the Western church settled on in the 8th century, based on the original meaning, though other names were used by Eastern churches (for more information see Biblical Magi). It is an alternate form of the Babylonian king Belshazzar, mentioned in the Book of Daniel.

People with the name

Balthazar Alvarez (1533–1580) Spanish Catholic mystic
Balthasar Bekker (1634–1698) Dutch philosopher
Baldassare Castiglione (1478–1529) Italian Renaissance author
Baltasar Corrada del Río, Puerto Rican politician
Balthasar Eggenberger (??–1493) Austrian entrepreneur and financier in the Holy Roman Empire
Baltasar Garzón, Spanish judge
Balthasar Gérard, assassin of William I of Orange
Balthazar Getty, American actor and great grandson of J. Paul Getty
Balthasar Glättli (born 1972), Swiss politician
Baltasar Gracián y Morales (1601–1658) Spanish Baroque prose writer
Hans Urs von Balthasar (1905–1988), Swiss Roman Catholic theologian and priest
Balthasar Hubmaier, German Anabaptist leader
Balthazar Klossowski de Rola (1908–2001) birth name of twentieth-century artist Balthus
Baltasar Lopes da Silva, Cape Verdean writer
Balthazar P. Melick, founder of Chemical Bank
Baltazar Maria de Morais Júnior, Brazilian footballer
Balthasar Ferdinand Moll (1717–1785) Baroque sculptor
Balthasar de Monconys (1611–1665) French magistrate
Balthasar Moncornet (c. 1600–1668), French engraver
Balthasar Neumann (1687–1753) German engineer and architect
Balthasar Oomkens von Esens, 16th century Frisian rebel (two of whose brothers were named Caspar and Melchior)
Balthasar Russow, Estonian chronicler
Balthazar Johannes Vorster, apartheid-era South African Prime Minister and President
McLeod John Baltazar Bethel-Thompson, American Football Quarterback

See also