Forrest
Meaning of Forrest
Forrest, a masculine appellation rooted in the Anglo-Norman term “forest” and ultimately the Late Latin foresta denoting “wooded enclosure,” entered the personal-name lexicon in nineteenth-century Britain and America through surname adoption, its semantic core evoking the regulated wilderness once reserved for royal hunting and managed by foresters. The name’s occupational origin imparts connotations of stewardship, quiet strength, and environmental affinity, associations subsequently reinforced in U.S. cultural memory by historical figures such as the cavalry commander Nathan Bedford Forrest and, in the late twentieth century, the fictional protagonist Forrest Gump, whose narrative of perseverance broadened the name’s symbolic range. While never occupying the uppermost echelons of American popularity, Forrest has displayed a characteristically cyclical trajectory—cresting near the national top 200 in the early 1920s, receding mid-century, briefly resurging in the 1990s, and, according to contemporary vital-statistics data, ascending again into the mid-300s by 2024—an arc that suggests durable, if measured, appeal among parents drawn to nature-inflected yet historically anchored choices. Pronounced uniformly in English as FOR-ist (/'fɔr.ɪst/ or /'fɒr.ɪst/), the name today signals a discreet blend of rustic imagery and classical formality, situating it within the broader revival of ecologically themed names that balance tradition with understated modernity.
Pronunciation
British English
- Pronunced as FOR-ist (/'fɒr.ɪst/)
American English
- Pronunced as FOR-ist (/'fɔr.ɪst/)
U.S. Popularity Chart
States Popularity Chart
Notable People Named Forrest
| Forrest Mims - Forrest M. Mims III is a magazine columnist and author who graduated from Texas A and M in 1966, served as a US Air Force intelligence officer in Vietnam, and later worked as a development engineer at the Air Force Weapons Laboratory. |
| Forrest Galante is an American adventurer and television host who searches for animals on the brink of extinction on Extinct or Alive, Mysterious Creatures, and Shark Week. |
| Forrest Dunbar is an American attorney, Democratic politician, and Alaska Army National Guard major and Judge Advocate who has represented East Anchorage District J in the Alaska Senate since 2023 and previously served on the Anchorage Assembly. |
| Forrest Ann Molinari is an American freestyle wrestler and mixed martial artist who won bronze at the 2021 World Wrestling Championships at 65 kg and is a four time Pan American medalist with three golds. |
| Forrest Pogue was a World War II US Army historian who championed oral history and later led the George C. Marshall Foundation and the Marshall Library at Virginia Military Institute. |
| Forrest Mars Jr. - Forrest Edward Mars Jr was an American heir and businessman who served as co president of Mars Incorporated from 1975 to 1999 and was the eldest son of Forrest Mars Sr and grandson of founder Franklin Mars. |
| Raymond Forrest Lewis was an American actor active in theater, radio, film, and television. |
| Forrest Goodluck is a Native American actor who debuted in The Revenant and has since appeared in The Miseducation of Cameron Post, How to Blow Up a Pipeline, and Lawmen Bass Reeves. |
| Forrest Pritchard is a New York Times bestselling author and seventh-generation sustainable farmer from Berryville, Virginia, whose pioneering Smith Meadows farm and books Gaining Ground and Growing Tomorrow helped popularize local grass-finished food. |
| Forrest Lee Wood, founder of Ranger Boats and pioneer of the modern bass boat, lent his name to the Walmart FLW sportfishing tour. |
| Forrest Hibbits was a California born midcentury artist and watercolorist who taught in San Francisco and Santa Barbara, created a 1939 Worlds Fair poster, and worked from landscapes to surreal and abstract art. |
| Forrest DeBernardi - Forrest Sale Red DeBernardi was a versatile 1920s American college basketball star who shone at Westminster College, set a still standing 24 field goal record in 1920, and later moved to Kansas to compete for the Kansas City Athletic Club in AAU play. |
| Forrest Scott Kline is an American musician best known as the lead vocalist of the power pop band Hellogoodbye. |
| Forrest McCreery Douds was a three time All American at Washington and Jefferson, a 1930 NFL All Pro, and the first head coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers. |
| Forrest Aguirre is an American fantasy and horror author and editor, a World Fantasy Award winner whose widely published work often explores Africa and includes a forthcoming debut novel. |
