Robert Horn

(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.

English, Scottish, German, and Dutch: from Middle English, Middle High German, Middle Dutch horn ‘horn’, applied in a variety of senses: as a metonymic occupational name for someone who made small articles, such as combs, spoons, and window lights, out of horn; as a metonymic occupational name for someone who played a musical instrument made from the horn of an animal; as a topographic name for someone who lived by a horn-shaped spur of a hill or tongue of land in a bend of a river, or a habitational name from any of the places named with this element (for example, in England, Horne in Surrey on a spur of a hill and Horn in Rutland in a bend of a river); as a nickname, perhaps referring to some feature of a person's physical appearance, or denoting a cuckolded husband.