(male) One of the many French names of Germanic origin that were introduced into Britain by the Normans; it has since remained in continuous use. It is derived from the nearly synonymous elements hrōd ‘fame’ + berht ‘bright, famous’, and had a native Old English predecessor of similar form (Hreodbeorht), which was supplanted by the Norman name. Two dukes of Normandy in the 11th century bore the name: the father of William the Conqueror (sometimes identified with the legendary Robert the Devil), and his eldest son. It was borne also by three kings of Scotland, notably Robert the Bruce (1274–1329), who freed Scotland from English domination. The altered short form Bob is very common, but Hob and Dob, which were common in the Middle Ages and gave rise to surnames, are extinct. See also Rupert.
Short forms: Bob, Rob.
Pet forms: Bobby, Robbie, Robin.
Cognates: Irish: Roibéard. Scottish Gaelic: Raibeart. German: Robert, Rupprecht. Dutch: Robrecht, Rob(b)ert. Scandinavian: Robert. French: Robert. Spanish, Portuguese, Italian: Roberto. Czech: Robert. Finnish: Roopertti. Hungarian: Róbert. Latvian: Roberts.
Scottish: habitational name from a place in Berwickshire (Borders), named with Welsh gor ‘spacious’ + din ‘fort’.
English (of Norman origin) and French: habitational name from Gourdon in Saône-et-Loire, so called from the Gallo-Roman personal name Gordus + the locative suffix -o, -ōnis.
Irish: adopted as an English equivalent of Gaelic Mag Mhuirneacháin, a patronymic from the personal name Muirneachán, a diminutive of muirneach ‘beloved’.
Jewish (from Lithuania): probably a habitational name from the Belorussian city of Grodno. It goes back at least to 1657. Various suggestions, more or less fanciful, have been put forward as to its origin. There is a family tradition among some bearers that they are descended from a son of a Duke of Gordon, who converted to Judaism in the 18th century, but the Jewish surname was in existence long before the 18th century; others claim descent from earlier Scottish converts, but this is implausible.
Spanish and Galician Gordón, and Basque: habitational name from a place called Gordon (Basque) or Gordón (Spanish, Galician), of which there are examples in Salamanca, Galicia, and Basque Country.
Spanish: possibly in some instances from an augmentative of the nickname Gordo (see Gordillo).
