Meaning & History
Often considered a diminutive of Hernán or Hernando. The French author Victor Hugo used it for the title hero of his play Hernani (1830) (which Verdi adapted into the opera Ernani in 1844), though in this case it was taken from the Spanish place name Hernani, a town in the Basque Country, which allegedly means "top of an illuminated hill" from Basque.