Frequency: (1057)
(number of times this surname appears in a sample database of 88.7 million names, representing one third of the 1997 US population)
1. German: from Middle High German brust ‘chest’, ‘breast’; also ‘vest’, presumably a nickname for someone with a particularly broad chest or alternatively for the wearer of a distinctive upper garment.
2. Swiss German: topographic name for someone living near a down-fault in a mountain range, probably a crevasse, from Brust, a noun derivative of bresten ‘to burst’.
3. French: from Old French brost ‘shoot’, ‘young growth’. Morlet suggests this is a topographic name for someone who lived by an area of low growth suitable for grazing.
4. Jewish (Ashkenazic): presumably from German Brust ‘chest’ (see 1) or from the Yiddish equivalent, brust.
GIVEN NAMES: German 4%. Aloysius, Bernhardt, Hermann, Kurt, Rainer, Reinhold, Wilfried.
See the Key to the Dictionary or consult the General Introduction for further explanation.
