Gerda was the name of the heroine of Hans Christian Andersen's children's tale "The Snow Queen". She went off on a long series of adventures to rescue her best friend, Kay (or Kai), from the Snow Queen who had kidnapped him. Another bearer is an asteroid called "122 Gerda", which was discovered in 1872. It was named after Gerd (also called Gerda), wife of Freyr in Norse myth.