Hales
surname · Latin script
Meaning: from the genitive singular or nominative plural form of Old English halh ‘nook’, ‘recess’ (see Hale) (Dictionary of American Family Names)
(measured from records)Officially recorded in 19 countries · latest register: Census Bureau, 2020
/heɪlz/(recorded in a dictionary) English · from Wiktionary
Hales is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country: 8,363 people, counted by the Census Bureau in 2010. In Turks & Caicos Islands it is the 18th most common surname.
- TCTurks & Caicos Islands≈1 in 1.6Kfew records(inferred from the name graph)
- AUAustralia≈1 in 13K
- NZNew Zealand≈1 in 14Kfew records
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Countries with no figure are shown too: flat where a national register lists the name without counting it, hatched where only our records hold it. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- United States (measured from records)
- Record sources
- 413 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 1.6K (inferred from the name graph)
8,363 people, 2010
corpus datasets behind its best-documented spelling
strongest: highest-authority source
Turks & Caicos Islands, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
How to pronounce Hales
- English:/heɪlz/(recorded in a dictionary) from Wiktionary
Meaning & origin
(measured from records)from the genitive singular or nominative plural form of Old English halh ‘nook’, ‘recess’ (see Hale).
Cited for this meaning 1
- Dictionary of American Family Names
Attested across 3 languages in the etymology graph.
Where the surname Hales is found
(measured from records)Hales counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.
Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | — | 8,363 | 1 in 40K | 8.4K | Hales | 413 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | ≈4,600 est. | ≈1 in 15K | — | Hales | 197 |
| AU Australia | — | ≈2,000 est. | ≈1 in 13K | — | Hales | 145 |
| CA Canada | — | ≈1,100 est. | ≈1 in 36K | — | Hales | 102 |
| DZ Algeria | — | ≈480 est. | ≈1 in 98K | listed | Hales | 9 |
| NZ New Zealand | — | ≈370 est. | ≈1 in 14K | — | Hales | 54 |
| IE Ireland | — | ≈180 est. | ≈1 in 30K | — | Hales | 37 |
| TC Turks & Caicos Islands | #18 | ≈29 est. | ≈1 in 1.6K | — | Hales | 1 |
8,363 people counted by Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010, 2010. Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.
Registers cited: Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; the dz-kaggle-names register. Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).
Other recorded senses
(measured from records)Hales is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
when not of English origin, this may be a variant of Healy or McHale.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
In English, third-person singular simple present indicative of hale
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In French, second-person singular present indicative/subjunctive of haler
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Latin, second-person singular present active subjunctive of hālō
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Galician, second-person singular present subjunctive of halar
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.
Notable people with this name
(measured from records)- Stephen Halesb. 1677SEBritish scientist (1677-1761)
- Jonathan Halesb. 1937GBBritish writer
- Jaclyn Halesb. 1986USAmerican actress
The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).
How to address them
(machine-generated)Evidence
(measured from records)33 registers and reference works attest this spelling, across 19 countries.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- What does the name Hales mean, and where does it come from?
- from the genitive singular or nominative plural form of Old English halh ‘nook’, ‘recess’ (see Hale). Recorded by Dictionary of American Family Names.
- How do you pronounce Hales?
- In English /heɪlz/ (Wiktionary).
- Which countries have the most people with the surname Hales?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 8.4 thousand people named Hales, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled hales. After it come United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and Algeria; the country table on this page ranks them.
- How common is the name Hales?
- In the United States, the national register counted 8,363 people named Hales in 2010, about 1 in 40 thousand residents.
- How common is Hales compared with other names?
- In Turks & Caicos Islands, Hales is the 18th most common surname of 3,662 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Hales?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/halesThe payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.
About this data
measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated
These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.
Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.
Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.
Cite this page Mondonomo, “Hales” — ranked 4206th in the United States (Census Bureau, 2010). Data snapshot 2026-10-13.