Ernest

Meaning

The excerpts connect Ernest with Old German ernst, glossed as “earnest,” “grave,” or “serious.” One excerpt also gives a more interpretive sense, describing it as an “ardent and vehement desire for study.” The older scholarly note about a possible Germanic native form is uncertain, so the most solid reading is the virtue-name sense now associated with earnestness.

Origin

Fun fact

19th-century name books sometimes treated Ernest as a Germanic virtue name, even while noting uncertainty about its deeper historical form.