Hungarian2 syllablesSaint's name
Meaning: the Hungarian Emeric — the prince who died young, and the name behind America.
Imre
| Origin | Hungarian form of the Germanic name Latinised as Emericus, borne by the son of Hungary's first king |
|---|---|
| Meaning | Usually traced to Germanic amal (labour, vigour) and ric (power, rule), the elements behind Emmerich and Amalric; a derivation from Heinrich has also been argued. Not settled |
| Pronunciation | IM-reh. Two syllables, both short, and the final e is always sounded. No accents in the spelling |
| Popularity | Outside the current U.S. top 100 and rare in America; in Hungary an established name that peaked in the mid-twentieth century |
| Variants | Emeric, Emmerich, Amerigo, Américo, Imrich (Slovak), Emerik (Croatian) |
| Nicknames | Imi, Imcsi, Imruska |
| Name day | 5 November, the feast of St Imre, patron of Hungarian youth |
History & meaning
Imre was the heir who never reigned. Born around 1000 to King István and Gisela of Bavaria, he was educated for the throne by Bishop Gellért and is the addressee of the Intelmek, the book of admonitions his father wrote for him, the earliest work of political thought produced in Hungary, still quoted for its line about a kingdom of one language being a weak one. In 1031 Imre was killed by a boar while hunting. The succession plan collapsed with him, the kingdom spent a generation in civil war, and in 1083 father, son and bishop were canonised together. St Imre became the patron of Hungarian youth, which is what happens to a prince who stays permanently twenty-four.
Then there is the other thing. Imre's Latin name was Emericus; the Italian form of the same Germanic name is Amerigo. Amerigo Vespucci argued in print that the land across the Atlantic was a new continent rather than Asia, and in 1507 Martin Waldseemüller printed a map that Latinised his forename to Americus, feminised it to match Europa and Asia, and labelled the southern landmass America. Two continents therefore carry a version of Imre. Whether Vespucci himself was named for the Hungarian saint is often asserted and cannot be shown — the saint's cult certainly reached Renaissance Florence — but that the two are the same name is not in dispute.
Why parents choose it
Short, soft and unaccented, it is one of the few Hungarian names an English speaker can read off the page and get nearly right. In Hungary it carries a saint, a set of serious modern bearers, and no fuss at all.
Middle names for Imre
A vowel ending pairs well with a consonant start: Imre Bálint, Imre Kristóf, Imre Dániel, Imre Ferenc. The middle names guide works through how to build the pair.
Famous Imres
Imre Kertész survived Auschwitz and Buchenwald as a teenager, wrote Fatelessness about it, and won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2002. Imre Nagy, the reform communist who led the government during the 1956 revolution, was executed in 1958 and reburied before a vast crowd in Budapest in June 1989, an occasion generally read as the end of the old regime. Imre Lakatos left in 1956 and spent his career at the London School of Economics arguing about how science changes its mind.
Consider instead
István is the father, and the larger name by every measure. Kálmán is another Árpádian king's name with a scholarly reputation attached. Gábor matches Imre for softness and comes with an archangel.