Sterling

(male) Mainly U.S.: transferred use of the surname, a variant of Stirling. As a given name, however, it is likely to have been chosen because of its association with the vocabulary word occurring in such phrases as ‘sterling qualities’ and ‘sterling worth’. This is derived from the Middle English word sterrling ‘little star’: some Norman coins had a little star on them. A 20th-century influence on the name was the American film actor Sterling Hayden (1916–86).