The Esterházy family began its rise thanks to Miklós I, who married two rich widows and sided with the Habsburgs against Transylvania during the Counter-Reformation, for which he was rewarded with the title of a count. His son Paul was content to make his mark by publishing a songbook, Harmonia cəœlestis, but Nikolaus Esterházy celebrated his inheritance of 600,000 acres and a dukedom by commissioning the palace in 1762. Boasting "anything the Kaiser can do, I can do better!", he spent 40,000 guldens a year on pomp and entertainment. Thereafter, the family gradually declined, Until under the communists, the Esterházys were expropriated and "un-personed". Today, one descendant drives trams in Vienna, while two others are respected figures back home: the writer Péter Esterházy and his cousin Márton Esterházy, formerly centre forward in the national football team. Internationally, the best-known bearer of the family name is Joe Eszterhas, the Hollywood scriptwriter of Basic Instinct and Showgirls.
Notable people with the name include:
- The House of Esterházy, a noble family in the Kingdom of Hungary since the Middle Ages, from which most of the following are in one way or another derived
- Nikolaus Esterházy, patron of Joseph Haydn
- Péter Esterházy, Hungarian writer
- Márton Esterházy, football player
- Móric Esterházy, Hungarian politician
- János Esterházy, Czechoslovakian politician
- Ferdinand Walsin Esterhazy (1847–1923), French traitor who caused the Dreyfus affair