Hunt

Boy name variations

Family name origins & meanings

• English : occupational name for a hunter, Old English hunta (a primary derivative of huntian ‘to hunt’). The term was used not only of the hunting on horseback of game such as stags and wild boars, which in the Middle Ages was a pursuit restricted to the ranks of the nobility, but also to much humbler forms of pursuit such as bird catching and poaching for food. The word seems also to have been used as an Old English personal name and to have survived into the Middle Ages as an occasional personal name. Compare Huntington and Huntley.
• Irish : in some cases (in Ulster) of English origin, but more commonly used as a quasi-translation of various Irish surnames such as Ó Fiaich (see Fee).
• Possibly an Americanized spelling of German Hundt.