From Germanic elements 'hug' (mind, heart) and 'berht' (bright), meaning 'bright mind.'
Hubert is a Germanic name of formidable antiquity, composed of the elements hug — meaning heart, mind, or spirit — and beraht, meaning bright or shining. The compound yields something like 'bright-minded' or 'shining spirit,' a meaning that the name's most famous bearer helped to immortalize. Saint Hubert of Liège, who died in 727 CE, was a Frankish nobleman who underwent a dramatic conversion after encountering a stag with a luminous crucifix between its antlers while hunting on Good Friday.
He became Bishop of Maastricht and later Liège, and upon his death was declared patron saint of hunters, archers, mathematicians, and — given the stag legend — those with rabies, as his intercession was long invoked against the disease. The name traveled through medieval Europe on the strength of saintly prestige, taking root particularly in France, the Low Countries, and England, where it arrived with the Norman Conquest. English Huberts included several medieval nobles, and the name was common enough in the Middle Ages to generate the affectionate diminutive Hobbe, which in turn contributed to the word 'hobby.'
In France, the name retained aristocratic associations through the centuries, borne by artists, scientists, and statesmen. In America, Hubert Horatio Humphrey — Senator from Minnesota, Vice President under Lyndon Johnson, and Democratic presidential nominee in 1968 — was the name's most prominent twentieth-century bearer, lending it a distinctly Midwestern, earnest, mid-century political gravity. The name declined sharply in use after the 1960s, casualties of the same fashion shift that swept away Herbert, Harold, and Howard. But Hubert has shown early signs of the vintage revival, particularly in continental Europe, where it never fell quite so far.