A feminine given name of English origin, most famously associated with Hester Prynne, the protagonist of Nathaniel Hawthorne's novel 'The Scarlet Letter'.
From Middle English, derived from the name Esther, which comes from Persian 'stāra' meaning 'star' or possibly from the Babylonian goddess Ishtar. The name gained literary prominence through Hawthorne's 1850 novel.
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