|
Greetings,
Here's the information we have on the name "Horst von Horstmann" as a German name. We weren't able to document it, but we were able to find possible evidence for the names "Horstwin Horstmann" and "Horstmar Horstmann."
"Horst" is a German word meaning "thicket" or "grove." "Horstmann" is found as early as 1135 and means "man from the thicket/grove." It's a perfectly acceptable byname. However, "von Horstmann" is ungrammatical--"von" also means "from the," and is only used in connection with places, not descriptive phrases. You could use the name "von der Horst," which means "from the thicket" and is dated to 1419 (but could have been used much earlier). (1)
We had a harder time finding "Horst" as a given name--to be exact, we didn't find any actual examples of "Horst" as a given name in period. That leads us to believe that it probably wasn't used in period, but there is still some hope--namely, an undated reference which says that "Horst" is a short form of the names "Horstwin" and "Horstmar." (2) Since none of the members of the Academy read German fluently, we've reproduced the citation here:
Horst, m, herkommlich gedutet als Bildung zu mittelniederdeutch horst=Gestrupp, kleiner Wald. Da eine enleuchtende Erklarung fur eine solche Namensgebung fehlt, ist es wahrsheinlicher, dass Horst aus einem alteren zweigliedrigen Namen gekurst ist, wie etwa -> Horstmar oder -> Horstwin, unde etwa "beruhmt im Wald" oder "Waldfreund" bedeuted. Heirbei ist vor allem an Manner zu denken, die in den german. Waldern, die auch als Grenzstreifen dienten, eine Schutz- und Wachfunktion ausubten.
As far as we can tell, this says that "Horst" is the short form of one of two older names in Middle Low German (a dialect of German which was spoken in the area that is now northern Germany and the Low Countries). "Horstmar" and "Horstwin." This isn't totally implausible, since "-mar" and "-win" are common elements in Germanic names. However, one of our members searched through a number of books on Dutch names without finding any name which begins with "Horst-." Even if we did find such a name, we don't know when "Horst" was first used.
This all means that there's some chance that "Horstwin Horstmann" is an actual medieval name. We have one undated, unsupported claim. Some authors made up "ancestors" to current names without any historical evidence, while others only use names they found in medieval records. Because we don't know where this author falls on the scale, we can't say whether this reference is any good. Because we didn't find any name starting with "Horst" in the several sources we checked, we can't say that "Horstwin" is a likely name. However, it's not impossible--if you submit it, there's a good chance that someone may know whether this author's research is reliable or not, and make a judgement on the name based on that.
"Horst" is far shakier. None of the many books on medieval German names gave any sign that "Horst" was used in the Middle Ages. There are plenty of examples of "Horst," but none of them are dated to period. Since many modern first names were surnames in period (English examples include "Neville," "Percy," and "Stanley"), it's likely that "Horst" was not a medieval German name.
Zenobia Naphtali, Lindorm Eriksson, Tangwystl verch Morgant Glasvryn, Arval D'Espas Nord, and Walraven van Nijmege all contributed to this letter.
We hope this has been helpful. If we can be of further assistance, please let us know.
In service,
Alan Fairfax
Academy of S. Gabriel
(1) Brechenmacher
(2) Eberhard-Wabniz, M. & Leisering, H. "Knaurs Vornamen Buch."