Erasmus as a Baby Name. Meaning and Origin of Erasmus

What is the meaning of the name Erasmus ?

The baby name Erasmus is a Male name , 3 syllables long and is pronounced /ɪˈræzməs/ (ih-RAS-muhs).

Erasmus is Greek in Origin.

Erasmus is the Latin form of the Greek name Erasmos/Erasmios, meaning “beloved” or “desired,” from erasthai “to love.” It entered Christian use through Saint Erasmus of Formia (St. Elmo), a 4th-century martyr and patron of sailors - hence “St. Elmo’s fire.” The name persisted through late antiquity and the medieval period, especially in ecclesiastical and scholarly circles, and gained lasting intellectual cachet from the Dutch Renaissance humanist Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam.

Variants and cognates include Erasmo (Italian, Spanish, Portuguese), Erasme (French), Erazm (Polish), Erazem (Slovene), and the widely used Scandinavian short form Rasmus. Saintly vernaculars Elmo (Italian) and Telmo (Spanish) derive from the same cult. Diminutives such as Ras and Raz appear in modern English. Though rare in contemporary Anglophone naming, Erasmus suggests a learned, cosmopolitan profile, further sustained by the EU’s ERASMUS academic exchange program named in his honor.