French form of Augustus, from Latin 'augere' meaning to increase; connotes majesty and grandeur.
Auguste derives from the Latin augustus, an adjective meaning venerable, majestic, or consecrated by augury — that is, blessed by the observation of omens. The Roman Senate bestowed the title Augustus on Gaius Octavius in 27 BCE, transforming a proper name into an imperial honorific and eventually back into a given name again. The first emperor gave Western civilization one of its most durable naming traditions: august as an adjective entered English meaning dignified and impressive, and August and Auguste as names carried that imperial gravity across two millennia.
In French and German usage, Auguste became particularly prominent in the nineteenth century, when classical names enjoyed a scholarly revival. The French philosopher Auguste Comte, founder of positivism and the discipline of sociology, was born in 1798 and spent his career arguing that society could be organized on scientific principles — lending the name a distinctly intellectual, rationalist association in France. The sculptor Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) gave it artistic grandeur: The Thinker, The Kiss, and the Gates of Hell make Auguste a name inseparable from the idea of form emerging from raw material.
Curiously, Auguste also entered circus tradition as the name for a specific type of clown — the bumbling, painted fool who serves as foil to the white-faced Pierrot. The origin of this usage is disputed, but by the late nineteenth century 'Auguste' had become the technical term for the anarchic, red-nosed clown across European circus culture, giving the name a simultaneously imperial and comic double life. Today Auguste is more common in France, Belgium, and German-speaking countries than in the English-speaking world, where August has largely eclipsed it — but the French form carries a Belle Époque elegance that is finding new admirers.