Baltazar Family History

Spanish, Portuguese, German, Dutch, Polish, Czech, Slovak, Hungarian (Baltazár), etc. It is derived from the Biblical personal names Balthazar and Belshazzar, which were originally distinct but by medieval times had come to be regarded as variants of a single name. The first is from Aramaic Balshatzar, Babylonian Baal tas-assar ‘may Baal preserve his life’, the second from Babylonian Baal shar-uzzur ‘may Baal protect the king’. The latter was borne by the Chaldean king for whom Daniel interpreted the writing on the wall (Daniel 5); the main reason for the popularity of the first in medieval Italy and Germany was that, according to legend, it was the name of one of the three Magi from the East who attended Christ’s birth. His supposed relics were venerated at first in Milan, but after 1164 in Cologne, where they had been taken by Rainald of Dassel.

Source: Dictionary of American Family Names ©2013, Oxford University Press