Learn English – Origin of street names ending in “-hurst”

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There is a large number of streets in the UK whose names end in -hurst, for example Ravenhurst, Gathurst, Oakhurst, Amhurst, Bonehurst, Eaglehurst, etc.

Is there a common meaning for this -hurst ending? How old are these names?

Best Answer

One reference: hurst = wooded hill. In street names, it's likely to be a modern invention; in place names, it may well survive from antiquity.

It's a Saxon word, and would thus probably occur more in Southern England than the Danelaw in the north. OED has

Etymology: Old English hyrst < Old Germanic type *hursti-z, whence Old High German, Middle High German hurst, German dialect horst ‘heap, cluster, thicket, top of rock, sandbank’ (Flügel); Middle Low German horst hill, wooded or bushy eminence, small wood, Low German horst, host, a bushy piece of land surrounded with marsh, a wooded eminence, East Frisian hörst, horst, höst, thicket, copse, sandy eminence (probably formerly overgrown with brushwood); Middle Dutch horst (Kilian horscht, horst) thicket of brushwood. In the forms -hurst, -hirst, -herst, a frequent element in place-names, as in Hawkhurst, Chislehurst, Ferniehirst, Amherst. (So -horst in Dutch and Low German.)

Icelandic hrjóstr rough place, barren rocky place, Norwegian dialect rust, ryst, little wood, thicket, clump of alders and dwarf birch, wooded tract on a mountain, lateral ridge of a mountain, Faroese rust ridge, show similarity of sense, but are difficult to connect phonologically.

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