(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.
English: habitational name from any of the various places, for example in Derbyshire, County Durham, Gloucestershire, Staffordshire, Wiltshire, and West Yorkshire, so named from Old English stān ‘stone’ + lēah ‘wood’, ‘clearing’.
Americanized form of any of various like-sounding names in other European languages, for example Polish Stanislawski and Greek Anastasiou.
FOREBEARS The explorer and journalist Sir Henry Morton Stanley (1841–1904) was born John Rowlands in Denbigh, Wales, but traveled as a cabin boy in 1858 from Liverpool, England, to New Orleans, LA, where he was adopted by a merchant surnamed Stanley. From the late 1860s he worked as a correspondent for the New York Herald, and traveled extensively in Africa.
