Hales

surname · Latin script

Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published

Hales is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country. In Turks & Caicos Islands it is the 18th most common surname. Recorded meaning: from the genitive singular or nominative plural form of Old English halh ‘nook’, ‘recess’ (see Hale).

rarermore common
  • AUAustralia≈1 in 14K(inferred from the name graph)
  • GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 16K
  • CACanada≈1 in 39K

carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.

China (inferred from the name graph)

≈36,000 people, est.

Sources
413 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

≈1 in 1.6K (inferred from the name graph)

Turks & Caicos Islands, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Meaning & origin(measured from records)

from the genitive singular or nominative plural form of Old English halh ‘nook’, ‘recess’ (see Hale).

Sources 1

  • Dictionary of American Family Names

Attested across 3 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world(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.

Where Hales is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
CN China—≈36,000 est.≈1 in 38K—Hales7
US United States—8,3631 in 40K8.4KHales413
GB United Kingdom—≈4,200 est.≈1 in 16K—Hales197
AU Australia—≈1,800 est.≈1 in 14K—Hales145
CA Canada—≈980 est.≈1 in 39K—Hales102
NZ New Zealand—≈330 est.≈1 in 15K—Hales54
IE Ireland—≈170 est.≈1 in 30K—Hales37
TC Turks & Caicos Islands#18≈35 est.≈1 in 1.6K—Hales1

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. 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 names spelled this way(inferred from the name graph)

Hales is also recorded as 5 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • Spanish surname4 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Chile, Colombia, Argentina

    Languages: Spanish, Italian

    Also written Haleš

  • a separate name4 spellings in the group

    Also written Hale-S, Haleš, Halès

  • French surname4 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in France, United States, United Kingdom, Canada

    Also written Halès, Hâlés

  • Hindi surname3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, United Kingdom, India

    Languages: Hindi, Urdu

    Also written Haleš

  • Polish surname2 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Poland, United Kingdom, United States

    Also written Haleš

50 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

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)

1400160018002000John Hales, b. 1516Stephen Hales, b. 1677Alfred Arthur Greenwood Hales, b. 1860Gordon Hales, b. 1916Alejandro Hales, b. 1923Robert D. Hales, b. 1932Jonathan Hales, b. 1937Charlie Hales, b. 1956Jaclyn Hales, b. 1986Nathan Hales, b. 1996

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).

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 33 sources across 19 countries.

Official registers attesting Hales
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 201020108.4K#4,240
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 202020208.2K#4,206
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 200020007.7K#4,238
US United Stateswru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.)———

Reference works 6

These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.

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.
In which country does Hales have the most bearers?
Mondonomo estimates about 36 thousand people named Hales in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled hales.
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.

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Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/hales

The same payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. Rate-limited for casual use; a free API key gives 1,000 requests a day, and bulk access is licensed separately.

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” — the 18th most common surname in Turks & Caicos Islands. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Hales parses inside a full name →