Name Awesome

Horst

Boys' name

Wood, thicket

Horst has been given to 83 babies in the U.S. since 1934. It was used fewer than 5 times in 2025, so it doesn't appear in the latest year's list — today it's a genuinely uncommon pick. Its peak year was 1967, with 13 recorded.

Babies named Horst, 1968

1 in 483,000

Horst over time, 1880–2025

Boys
05101518801900192019401960198020002020

Based on births in the U.S. Babies given the name each year. Hover the chart — or focus it and use the arrow keys — for any year. Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Horst: meaning, origin, and history

Wood, thicket

German

What Horst means

Horst means “wood, thicket”.

Documented naming usage and pronunciation

Horst is used in German.

Another recorded pronunciation is /ˈhɔʁst/ for Horst.

Origin, language, and formation

Horst is used in Czech and German. Its origins include German.

Pronunciation and spelling

In Czech, Horst is pronounced [ˈɦorst].

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 83 boys were recorded with the name Horst between 1934 and 1968. Its highest annual count was 13 in 1967; its best national rank was #2,284 in 1967.

Sources & methodologyReferences, data & attribution

Meaning, origin, and language notes draw on the references below.

American popularity figures use published Social Security Administration records for this exact spelling. Counts below five for a name, sex, and year are omitted.

Wiktionary material is available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

How common is Horst?

Horst had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 1968, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 1968
1 in 483,000
7 of 3,378,301 births
Among boys only
1 in 248,000
<0.01% of boys
Rank, 1968
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
334,524 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Horst sits on the popularity scale

Rarest published (5 a year)#1 — Liam (20,818)

Chance at least one other child shares the name

If the other children were drawn at random from the 1968 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.

Class of 20Under 1%
Class of 30Under 1%
Grade of 100Under 1%
School of 500Under 1%

Put another way: gather 334,524 children born in 1968 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Horst. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Horsts were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Horst was born before 1963 — so the typical Horst is around 62 today.

Median birth year
1963
About 62 years old
Biggest decade
1960s
68.7% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
80.7%
A modern name
Recorded since 1950
67
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1960s — 68.7% of all recorded uses (57).

Is Horst rising or falling?

Rank movement and count movement can disagree — the number of distinct names in use keeps growing, so a name holding a steady count still slides down the list. Both are shown.

Rank vs 1 year ago
—
Not ranked then
Rank vs 5 years ago
New entry
Not ranked then
Rank vs 10 years ago
—
Not ranked then
Births vs 10 years ago
—
Not published both years
Share of its own peak
0%
Peak was 1967 (13)
Years since peak
58
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Volatile
34.7% average annual change
Best rank ever
#2,284
1967

Spellings of Horst

Horst is not the most common spelling — Forest is, with 51.8% against Horst's 0.24%.

Grouped by closeness of spelling (up to two letter changes), same sex, with a floor on all-time use. It catches Sophia/Sofia and Aiden/Ayden, and misses spellings that sound alike but look different, like Sean and Shawn.

Horst around the world

Where Horst ranks in official birth records elsewhere in the world. Rankings only — the number of births isn’t comparable between places, so it isn’t shown.

  • France
    1900–1958
    #1,503
    in 1958
  • South Australia
    1956–1994
    #531
    in 1994

Popularity data from Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques and Consumer and Business Services (South Australia). INSEE data under Licence Ouverte / Etalab 2.0. CBS SA data under CC BY 4.0.

Horst by the numbers

The raw record for each sex the name is used for.

As a boy's name

Rank in 2025
Unranked
Trend vs 5 yrs ago
—
Best rank ever
#2,284
1967
Peak year
1967
13 that year
First recorded
1934
Last recorded
1968
All-time count
83
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Horst

Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.

HorusHorrisHoriceHoraldHorizonHorraceHorebHortonHurstHoratioHoroldHorlandoHoracioHorace

Sibling names for Horst

Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.

Explore around Horst

Top names of 1967, Horst's peak yearThe 1960s in fullOther names that peaked in 1967Boys' names starting with HShort German Boy Names