The famous, unmistakable, Leibniz butter cookies. The Leibniz Story: In 1891 Hermann Bahlsen, the company's founder, created these butter biscuits and named them after Gottfried Wilheim Leibniz, the most famous citizen of his hometown of Hannover. Leibniz, born in 1646, was a philosopher, mathematician and physicist. Leibniz is one of the oldest trade names in business today.