English: topographic name for someone who lived in or near a royal
forest, or a metonymic occupational name for a keeper or worker in
one. Middle English forest was not, as today, a near-synonym of
wood, but referred specifically to a large area of woodland
reserved by law for the purposes of hunting by the king and his
nobles. The same applied to the European cognates, both Germanic and
Romance. The English word is from Old French forest, Late Latin
forestis (silva). This is generally taken to be a derivative of
foris ‘outside’; the reference was probably to woods lying
outside a habitation. On the other hand, Middle High German
for(e)st has been held to be a derivative of Old High German
foraha ‘fir’ (see Forster), with the addition of a
collective suffix.
Dictionary of American Family Names, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-508137-4
700,813
Historical Documents & Family Trees with Forrest
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