The history of your name

The HAROLD surname in the USA

Frequency Comparisons
Total Rank Frequency % Per million people
United States
United States (Current snapshot) 6,428 5008 0.002 24
United States (1880 census) 1,285 4414 0.003 26
Change since 1880 +5143 -594 -0.001 -2
Other Countries
Australia 164 9057 0.001 10
United Kingdom 1,050 5057 0.002 23
Top States for HAROLD by Total
State Total Rank in State Frequency % Per million people
Ohio 505 2926 0.004 44
California 502 5937 0.001 15
Virginia 473 2062 0.007 67
Florida 367 5710 0.002 23
New York 334 6138 0.002 18
Top States for HAROLD by Frequency
State Total Rank in State Frequency % Per million people
West Virginia 205 1353 0.011 113
Virginia 473 2062 0.007 67
Ohio 505 2926 0.004 44
Kansas 117 2984 0.004 44
Louisiana 181 3315 0.004 41

Notes

'A figure of zero indicates that we don't have data for this name (usually because it's quite uncommon and our stats don't go down that far). It doesn't mean that there's no-one with that name at all!

For less common surnames, the figures get progressively less reliable the fewer holders of that name there are. This data is aggregated from several public lists, and some stats are interpolated from known values. The margin of error is well over 100% at the rarest end of the table!

For less common surnames, the frequency and "per million" values may be 0 even though there are people with that name. That's because they represent less than one in a million of the population, which ends up as 0 after rounding.

It's possible for a surname to gain in rank and/or total while being less common per million people (or vice versa) as there are now more surnames in the USA as a result of immigration. In mathematical terms, the tail has got longer, with a far larger number of less common surnames.

Figures for top states show firstly the states where most people called HAROLD live. This obviously tends to be biased towards the most populous states. The second set of figures show where people called HAROLD represent the biggest proportion of the population. So, in this case, there are more people called HAROLD in Ohio than any other state, but you are more likely to find a HAROLD by picking someone at random in West Virginia than anywhere else.

Classification and Origin of HAROLD

Region of origin: British Isles

Country of origin: England

Language of origin: English

Ethnic origin: English

Religious origin: Christian

Name derivation: From given name or forename

Data for religion and/or language relates to the culture in which the HAROLD surname originated. It does not necessarily have any correlation with the language spoken, or religion practised, by the majority of current American citizens with that name.

Data for ethnic origin relates to the region and country in which the HAROLD surname originated. It does not necessarily have any correlation with the ethnicity of the majority of current American citizens with that name.

Ethnic distribution of HAROLD in the USA

Classification Total Percent
White (Hispanic) 131 2.04
Mixed Race 121 1.88
Native American/Alaskan 50 0.78
Asian/Pacific 47 0.73
White (Caucasian) 4,524 70.38
Black/African American 1,555 24.19

Ethnic distribution data shows the number and percentage of people with the HAROLD surname who reported their ethnic background as being in these broad categories in the most recent national census.

Meaning of HAROLD in historical publications

In old Anglo Saxon, signifies "The love of the army." From Har, an army, and hold, love.

Arthur, William (1857) An Etymological Dictionary of Family and Christian Names. New York: Sheldon, Blakeman. Public Domain.


HAROLD. The well-known Scandinavian personal name, borne by Norwegian, Danish, and English kings.

Lower, Mark A (1860) Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom. London: J.R. Smith. Public Domain.


Similar names to HAROLD

The following names have similar spellings or pronunciations as HAROLD.

This does not necessarily imply a direct relationship between the names, but may indicate names that could be mistaken for this one when written down or misheard.

Matches are generated automatically by a combination of Soundex, Metaphone and Levenshtein matching.

Potential typos for HAROLD

The following words are slight variants of HAROLD that are likely to be possible typos or misspellings in written material.