(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: name of a clan associated with Caithness, derived from the Old Norse personal name Gunnr (or the feminine form Gunne), a short form of any of various compound names with the first element gunn ‘battle’.
Scottish: sometimes an Anglicized form of Gaelic Mac Gille Dhuinn ‘son of the servant of the brown one’ (see Dunn). (According to Woulfe a name of the same form also existed in Sligo, Ireland.)
English: metonymic occupational name for someone who operated a siege engine or cannon, perhaps also a nickname for a forceful person, from Middle English gunne, gonne ‘ballista’, ‘cannon’, ‘gun’. The term originated as a humorous application of the Scandinavian female personal name Gunne or Gunnhildr.
