Bert

Bert or BERT may refer to:

Places

Persons, characters, or animals known as Bert

Other

See also

Bert (name)

Bert is a hypocoristic form of a number of Germanic male given names, such as Robert and Albert.

There is a large number of Germanic names ending in -bert, second in number only to those ending in -wolf (-olf, -ulf). Most of these names are early medieval and only a comparatively small fraction remains in modern use.

The element -berht has the meaning of "bright", Old English beorht/berht, Old High German beraht/bereht, ultimately from a Common Germanic *berhtaz, from a PIE root *bhereg- "white, bright". The female hypocoristic of names containing the same element is Berta.

Modern English bright itself has the same etymology, but it has suffered metathesis at an early date, already in the Old English period, attested as early as AD 700 in the Lindisfarne Gospels. The unmetathesized form disappears after AD 1000 and Middle English from about 1200 has briht universally.

Names containing berht

There is no evidence of the berht element in Germanic personal names prior to the 6th century. It is mostly unknown in names of Goths, Vandals, Frisians or Norse, and only rarely occurs in names of Saxons. By contrast, it is very common among Anglo-Saxons, Lombards, Franks and Bavarians. The popularity of the element in certain areas may be related to religion, similar to the wolf element being due to the worship of Wodanaz, the names with berht can be considered theophoric, in connection with the goddess Perchta. The full form of Old High German beraht is reduced in two ways, by omission of either the second (berht, perht, pert) or the first vowel (braht, praht, brat, prat, brecht). Early attestations of such names include Ethberictus, Garberictus, and Transberictus mentioned in Hontheim's Historia Trevirensis s. a. 699. Pardessus' Diplomata s. a. 745 has Berdbert as a rare example of a reduplicated Germanic name. Förstemann counts 369 names with final -bert(a), of which 61 are feminine.

Bert (horse)

Bert (born 1934) was one of the most influential sires in the early years of the American Quarter Horse Association (AQHA).

Life

Foaled on March 24, 1934 in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Bert was registered as number 227 with the AQHA. His registration entry gives his breeder as Bert Benear of Tulsa, Oklahoma and his color as brown. His sire, Tommy Clegg was a descendant of Peter McCue while his dam, Mayflower, was descended from both Yellow Jacket and Yellow Wolf. Lady Coolidge was a dun mare foaled in 1928, bred by Mike Beetch of Lawton, Oklahoma. Her dam was a match racing mare with a time of eleven seconds for the 220 yards. Bert's sire was used on the Benear ranch as a cowhorse before he was sold to Howard Martin.

Bert was bought as a colt by Bob Weimer of Council Hill, Oklahoma who named his new purchase after the colt's breeder. Bert was broke as a three-year-old, but before he could start on a riding career, he injured himself in barbed wire, almost cutting his right front foot off. After a recovery lasting months, Bert was sound, but his owner did not feel that it was safe to work him hard, as the colt had been purchased mainly as a breeding stallion prospect. In his prime, he stood 14.3 hands (59 inches, 150 cm) high and weighed close to 1150 pounds. Weimer claimed that he could "turn him out in the morning with the mares and drive out in the pasture in the evening with the pick-up and he will come to me as quick as I call him."