Brontë.

Used by Patrick Brontë (1777–1861) as a rendering of Brunty, Prunty, an Anglicization of the Irish Ó Proinntigh (“descendant of a person named Proinnteach (“Generous”)”), with the diaeresis over the terminal ⟨e⟩ to indicate that the name has two syllables. He first registered in 1802 at St John’s College, Cambridge, as Branty or Brunty, later Brontë, and formally changed the spelling in adult life. Multiple theories exist to account for the change, including that he may have wished to hide his humble origins. As he would have been familiar with classical Greek as a man of letters, he may have chosen the name after Ancient Greek βροντή (brontḗ, “thunder”). One view, which biographer Clement Shorter proposed in 1896, is that he adapted his name to associate himself with Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson, who was also Duke of Bronte (itself also of same Greek origin).