Horst
A German surname meaning a bushy thicket, wooded copse, or elevated wooded place.
The #3,831 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 33,396 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Horst comes from German horst, from older forms such as Middle High German and Old High German words meaning a thicket, bush, or shrubbery. In place-name use, it could also refer to a wooded rise or copse. The surname was therefore often given to someone who lived by such a place or came from a settlement named for it.
History
The name is well established in German-speaking areas and also appears in Dutch- and Scandinavian-influenced records as a place-name element. Historical surname writers sometimes treated it as a habitational or local name formed from a landscape word rather than from a personal name. In English-language references it is often glossed alongside Hurst as a close cognate.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
The same word behind the surname also survives in German place names and common vocabulary for a dense thicket or copse.
From the historical record
“hfipfen, hop(a; Late O.H.Ger. hopjd\ HORST (Ger.) Shrubbery, Thicket [O.H.Ger. hors(\ Cogn. with Hurst, q.v. in Diet. HUGO (Ger.) = Hugh, q.v. in Diet. JAEGER"! (Ger.) Hunter ]JAM.(jex. jeger{e, JAGER ) O.H.Ger. •ya^^eW = Dut.}"a^er] JANSEN \ (Scand.) Jan's or Johan's Son JENSEN J = Johnson, q.v. in Diet. [Dan.-”
— Surnames of the United Kingdom: a concise etymological dictionary (2 vols in 1)