Brent

For a list of articles see Brent (disambiguation)

Look up Brent in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Brent is an English place name and surname. The place name can be from Celtic words meaning "holy one" (if it refers to the River Brent), or "high place," literally, "from a steep hill" (if it refers to the villages in Somerset and Devon, England) (Mills 1991). The surname often indicates that one's ancestors lived in a place called Brent, but it can also come from the Middle English word brent meaning burned, indicating that one's ancestor either lived near a burned-over area, or was a criminal who had been branded on the cheek (Hanks and Hodges 1988).

Brent has also become a regularly used given name, being among the thousand most common names for boys born in the United States since 1933. [1] When used as a given name today, Brent is sometimes a short form of Brenton, but this was probably not the original inspiration for Brent's use as a given name, since Brenton's own regular use as a first name came many years after Brent was established in that role (Evans 2006).

References

• Evans, C. K. (2006). The great big book of baby names. Lincolnwood, Illinois: Publications International Limited. ISBN 1-4127-1300-5.
• Hanks, P. & Hodges, F. (1988). A dictionary of surnames. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-211592-8.
• Mills, A. D. (1991). A dictionary of British place-names. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-869156-4.