Is Gehrman the First Hunter?

Yes. Gehrman is the first hunter, and Bloodborne says it directly: he fights you under the name Gehrman, the First Hunter, and his Burial Blade is described as the "trick weapon wielded by Gehrman, the first hunter." His weapon and his clothes are both described as the starting point for everything hunters later used. The only rival claim is Ludwig's, and that title is narrower: first hunter of the church. (Bloodborne)

What the game calls him#

The title is part of his name. When the player refuses his mercy at the end of the night, the boss bar reads Gehrman, the First Hunter. (Bloodborne)

The item text backs it up. The Burial Blade opens: "Trick weapon wielded by Gehrman, the first hunter." His hunter garb opens: "Attire of Gehrman, the first hunter." (Bloodborne)

Hunting before the workshop#

The garb's description says it was "created before the workshop existed by making adjustments to everyday clothing", and that it "later became the basis for all hunter's garb". It adds that hunters' habit of fighting fast in light clothing no doubt traces back to Gehrman's own combat style. (Bloodborne)

His weapon set the same pattern. The Burial Blade is "a masterpiece that defined the entire array of weapons crafted at the workshop", forged from siderite said to have fallen from the heavens. Interpretation: together the two items paint him as the man who invented hunting as a craft, with gear and weapons, not just the first person to kill a beast. (Bloodborne)

The same weapon gives his attitude. Gehrman, it says, saw the hunt as a dirge of farewell, wishing only that his prey might rest in peace and never wake to another nightmare. (Bloodborne)

The first hunters were his students#

Gehrman didn't hunt alone for long. The Maria Hunter Cap says that "among the first hunters, all students of Gehrman, was the lady hunter Maria." She admired him, it adds, "unaware of his curious mania". (Bloodborne: The Old Hunters)

The Old Hunter Bone, found in the Abandoned Old Workshop, belonged to another of them, a hunter whose name is lost. It is said he was an apprentice to old Gehrman and a practitioner of the Quickening, "a technique particular to the first hunters." (Bloodborne)

That workshop is Gehrman's. The Hunter's Dream is a copy of it, which is why Gehrman tells the new hunter the Dream "was once a safe haven for hunters". (Bloodborne)

Ludwig, the first hunter of the church#

The one possible confusion is Ludwig. Ludwig's Holy Blade calls him "the first hunter of the church", and says the Healing Church workshop began with him and "departed from old Gehrman's technique" to give hunters the means to fight more terrifying beasts. (Bloodborne)

So the two titles don't clash. Gehrman came first and founded hunting; Ludwig came later and founded the Church's own branch of it. Gehrman remembers that era himself, telling the player that the Church's ministers were once guardians of the hunters, "in the times of the hunter...Ludwig." (Bloodborne)

Where the first hunter ended up#

By the night of the game, the first hunter is a frail old man who can't leave the Dream. The Doll says he was a hunter "long, long ago" and now only advises. His badge, the Old Hunter Badge, was "crafted in Gehrman's time" and is good for little except romanticising about the past. (Bloodborne)

He still has it in him, though. Refuse his offer of mercy and he decides "Tonight, Gehrman joins the hunt", and he comes at the player with the Burial Blade. Interpretation: many players read the fight as the game's way of showing why he earned the title. (Bloodborne)

Read more#

Gehrman covers his whole story, Lady Maria his best-known student, and why Gehrman is in the Hunter's Dream how he ended up in that chair. (Bloodborne; Bloodborne: The Old Hunters)