Gender Feminine
Usage English, Dutch, Biblical Latin
Pronounced Pron. /ˈhɛs.təɹ/ (American English) /ˈhɛs.tə/ (British English) /ˈɦɛs.tər/ (Dutch) [key ·simplify]
Meaning & History
Latin form of Esther. Like Esther, it has been used in England since the Protestant Reformation. Nathaniel Hawthorne used it for the heroine of his novel The Scarlet Letter (1850), Hester Prynne, a Puritan woman forced to wear a red letter A on her chest after giving birth to a child out of wedlock.
Related Names
Rootʿṯtr
DiminutiveHettie (English)
Other Languages & CulturesEsther (Biblical) Esther (Biblical Greek) 'Ester (Biblical Hebrew) Ester (Catalan) Ester (Czech) Ester, Esther (Danish) Ester (Estonian) Ester, Esteri, Essi (Finnish) Esther (French) Esther (German) Ester, Esti (Hebrew) Eszter, Eszti (Hungarian) Ester (Icelandic) Ester (Italian) Esther, Estee (Jewish) Estere (Latvian) Estera (Lithuanian) Ester, Esther (Norwegian) Estera (Polish) Ester (Portuguese) Estera (Romanian) Yesfir, Esfir (Russian) Estera (Slovak) Ester, Esther (Spanish) Ester, Esther (Swedish)
Popularity
People think this name is
classic mature formal upper class natural wholesome strong refined strange serious
Categories
angels currently out of the US top 1000 D. H. Lawrence characters educators ends in -er explorers fictional characters Frasier characters His Dark Materials characters James Joyce characters Latinizations literature Oscar Wilde characters Quakers socialites Streathamites The Nanny characters W. Somerset Maugham characters
Entry updated December 1, 2024