Esther (given name)

Esther (Hebrew: אֶסְתֵּר) is a female given name known from the Jewish queen Esther, eponymous heroine of the Book of Esther.

Esther
The Biblical Queen Esther depicted in a portrait by John Everett Millais.
GenderFemale
Origin
Word/nameHebrew/Jewish
Meaning"Star"
Other names
Related namesEstee, Estella, Estelle, Esti, Estrella, Hadassah, Hester, Stella

According to the Hebrew Bible, queen Esther was born with the name הֲדַסָּה‎ Hadassah ("Myrtle"). Her name was changed to Esther to hide her identity upon becoming queen of Persia. The three letter root of Esther in Hebrew is s-t-r (סתר‎), "hide, conceal". The passive infinitive is (לְהִסָּ֫תֶר‎), "to be hidden".[1]

The name can be derived from the Old Persian stāra (NPer. ستاره setāra, meaning "star") although some scholars identify Esther with the name of the Babylonian goddess of love Ishtar, given its association with the planet Venus (in its role as the Morning Star and the Evening star; see also the Star of Ishtar).[2]

History of usage

Esther first occurs as a given name in Europe and the British Isles at the time of the Reformation prior to which the occurrence of Biblical names – unless borne by saints – was unusual.[3] The modified form, Hester, has seemingly co-existed with the original Esther throughout the name's usage in the English-speaking world, where despite a theoretic slight difference in pronunciation, Esther and Hester were long largely – perhaps totally – interchangeable, with it being routine for a woman cited as Esther in one document to be elsewhere documented as Hester. One example of this is Esther Johnson, the "Stella" of Jonathan Swift, whose baptismal record identifies her as Hester but who always signed herself Esther.[4] Similarly, Swift wrote letters to his "Vanessa": Esther Vanhomrigh, in which Swift sometimes wrote her first name in the respective address as Esther and sometimes as Hester.[5] The interchangeable usage of Esther and Hester had essentially been phased out by 1900,[6] with Esther retaining a high usage (especially in North America), whereas the usage of Hester has shown a progressive decline.

The 9 September 1893 birth of Esther Cleveland, daughter of US president Grover Cleveland, was heavily publicized as the first birth of a presidential child in the White House; the press announcements of her name stated it meant "star". The 1891 birth of Cleveland's first daughter, also Biblically named Ruth, had caused a media sensation and boosted Ruth into the top ten of American girl's names,[7] and while the public endorsement of Esther as the choice of name for Cleveland's second daughter was more muted, Esther did reach its all-time zenith of US popularity soon after Esther Cleveland's birth, being ranked as the #27 most popular name for American girls for the year 1896.[8]

Esther has been a well-used name for Caucasian baby girls born in New York City,[9] and has remained a favored name in some Jewish communities such as those in New York. It has also increased in usage along with other Biblical names for babies born during the COVID-19 pandemic by parents seeking comfort in their religious faith.[10][11]

International variants

Alternate forms of Esther are:

Esther

Ester

See also

Notes
  1. Brown, Francis (2012). The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon. Boston MA: Houghton, Mifflin and Company. ISBN 978-1-56563-206-6.
  2. The use of Ishtar as the original name of Esther is based on the idea that an old Babylonian myth has been adapted by Judeans in which the gods of Babylon (Marduk [Mordechai] and Ishtar [Esther] fight for the control of the King against the Elamite gods of Hammambam [Hamon] and a god who is transformed into Vashti.
  3. Behind the Name
  4. Damrosch, Leo (2014). Jonathan Swift: his life and his world. New Haven CT: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0300205411.
  5. "Vanessa and her correspondence with Jonathan Swift". 1921.
  6. Palmer, Arnold E (2015). In Their Footsteps: a 500 year genealogical odyssey. ISBN 978-1-5144-2123-9.
  7. Algeo, Matthew (2011). The President Is a Sick Man: wherein the supposedly virtuous Grover Cleveland survives a secret surgery at sea and vilifies the courageous newspaperman who dared expose the truth. Chicago: Chicago Review Press. pp. 50, 172. ISBN 978-1-56976-350-6.
  8. "Home". nameplayground.com.
  9. "New York City Health Department. "What's in a Name? Health Department Releases New York City's Most Popular Baby Names For 2006"". Archived from the original on 2008-05-15. Retrieved 2008-05-19.
  10. "Popular Baby Names". Archived from the original on 2018-02-02. Retrieved 2022-06-04.
  11. Dunn, Jancee (19 January 2021). "From 'Alma' to 'Zuri,' Parents Are Looking for Positive Baby Names: They're searching the heavens, and through family history, for strong monikers in a pandemic". The New York Times. Retrieved 3 June 2022.
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