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.
Gender	Female
Origin
Word/name	Hebrew/Jewish
Meaning	"Star"
Other names
Related names	Estee, 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:

• Eistir (Irish)
• Eseza (Luganda)
• Esita (Luganda)
• Essi (Finnish)
• Essie (English)
• Essy (Australian)
• Esta (English)
• Estée (French)
• Ester (Catalan), (Czech), (Estonian), (Finnish), (Italian), (Portuguese), (North Germanic languages), (Spanish), (Persian), (Turkish)
• Estera (Polish), (Slovak), (Romanian), (Lithuanian)
• Estere (Latvian)
• Esteri (Finnish)
• Εσθήρ (Greek)
• Eszter (Hungarian)
• Ester, Esther (Indonesian)
• Eszti (Hungarian)
• Ettie (English)
• Etty (English)
• Hester (English)
• Hettie (English)
• Inana (Sumerian)
• أَسْتِير (ʾAstīr) Arabic
• אֶסְתֵּר‎ (Esther), the Hebrew and Israeli version of the name. Also Esti and Eti.
• ستاره (Setare) (Persian)
• ئه ستیره (Estere) (Kurdish)
• Јестира (Jestira) (Serbian)
• Эсфирь (Esfir') (Russian)
• Esitere (Chichewa)

Esther

• Esther Abrahams
• Esther Aghatise
• Esther Saville Allen
• Esther Anderson
• Esther E. Baldwin
• Esther Baxter
• Esther Béjarano
• Esther Bell
• Esther Benbassa
• Esther de Berdt
• Esther Blake
• Esther Barbara Bloemart
• Esther Boise van Deman
• Esther Brand
• Esther Brandeau
• Esther Brann
• Esther Brimmer
• Esther Bubley
• Esther Cailingold
• Esther Cañadas
• Esther Cardoso
• Esther Clark Wright
• Esther Clayson
• Esther Cleveland
• Esther Cohen
• Esther Dankwah
• Esther David
• Esther Dean
• Esther Delisle
• Esther Duflo
• Esther Dyson
• Esther Earl, after whom Esther Day was named
• Esther Edwards (disambiguation)
• Esther Eneutseak
• Esther Erlich
• Esther Farbstein
• Esther Fernández
• Esther Ferrer
• Esther Fischer-Homberger
• Esther Forbes
• Esther G. Frame
• Esther Freud
• Esther Friesner
• Esther Geller
• Esti Ginzburg
• Esther Golar
• Esther Goris
• Esther Haase
• Esther Hahn
• Esther Hall
• Esther Hamerman
• Esther Handali
• Esther Hart (singer) (born 1970), Dutch singer
• Esther Hart (Titanic survivor) (1863–1928), survivor of the sinking of the RMS Titanic
• Esther Hasson
• Esther Hautzig
• Esther Haywood
• Esther Hermitte
• Esther Hicks
• Esther Hobart Morris
• Esther Aberdeen Holm
• Esther Studholme Hope
• Esther Housh
• Esther Howard
• Esther Howland
• Esther Hunt
• Esther Inglis
• Esther James
• Esther John
• Esther Johnson
• Esther Jolobala
• Esther Jones (disambiguation)
• Esther Jungreis
• Esther Kamatari
• Esther Kellner
• Esther Kenworthy Waterhouse

• Esther Kia'aina
• Esther Koplowitz
• Esther Kreitman
• Esther K. Richardson
• Esther Ku
• Esther Kwan
• Esther Lachmann
• Esther Lederberg
• Esther Lekain
• Esther Levine
• Esther J. Trimble Lippincott
• Esther Liu
• Esther Marly Conwell
• Esther Margolis
• Esther Maria Lewis Chapin
• Esther Martinez
• Esther McCoy
• Esther McCracken
• Esther Mcheka Chilenje
• Esther Lord McNeill
• Esther McVey
• Esther Muir
• Esther Murugi Mathenge
• Esther Newberg
• Esther Newton
• Esther Nisenthal Krinitz
• Esther Afua Ocloo
• Esther Ofarim
• Esther Orozco
• Esther Ouwehand
• Esther Oyema
• Esther Peterson
• Esther Phillips
• Esther Pohl Lovejoy
• Esther D. du Pont
• Esther Porter
• Esther Tuttle Pritchard
• Esther Pugh
• Esther Rahim
• Esther Ralston
• Esther Rantzen
• Esther Raziel Naor
• Esther Rochon
• Esther Rolle
• Esther Rome
• Esther Roper
• Esther Rose
• Esther Roth Shahamorov
• Esther Sandoval
• Esther Schipper, German art dealer
• Esther Schweins
• Esther Scott
• Esther Shimazu
• Esther Shiner
• Esther Snyder
• Esther Somerfeld-Ziskind
• Esther Baker Steele
• Esther Sumner Damon
• Esther Szekeres-Klein
• Esther W. Taylor
• Esther Termens
• Esther Vanhomrigh
• Esther Valiquette
• Esther Vergeer
• Esther Vilar
• Esther Vilenska
• Esther Walker
• Esther Wanjiru
• Esther Wertheimer
• Esther Wheelwright
• Esther Williams
• Esther Wojcicki
• Esther Wong
• Esther Yu

Ester

• Ester Andujar
• Ester Aparecida dos Santos
• Ester Balassini
• Ester Blenda Nordström
• Ester Böserup
• Elisa Colberg, known as Ester Colberg
• Ester Exposito
• Ester Fanous
• Ester Hernandez
• Ester Larsen
• Ester Ledecká
• Ester Mägi
• Ester Peony
• Ester H. Segal
• Ester Toivonen
• Ester Wier
• Ester Workel

See also

• Esther (disambiguation)
• Queen Esther (disambiguation)
• Esta (given name)
• Estelle (given name)
• Stella (given name)
• Eszter, a given name
• Etty, Etti, and Ettie, given names
• Hester, a given name and surname
• Hetty (disambiguation)

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.^{[citation needed]}
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. Xlibris Corporation. 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.