Harvey

surname · Latin script

Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise

Harvey is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country. Recorded meaning: (i) from the Breton personal name Aeruiu or Haerviu, literally 'battle-worthy'; (ii) from Irish Gaelic O hAirmheadhaigh, 'descendant of Airmheadhach', of uncertain origin.

rarermore common
  • AUAustralia≈1 in 1.5K(inferred from the name graph)
  • GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 1.5K
  • NZNew Zealand≈1 in 1.9K

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.

United States (measured from records)

115,662 people, 2010

#743 (measured from records)

of 19M surnames

2 (measured from records)

recorded for this name

Sources
575 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

1 in 424 (inferred from the name graph)

St. Kitts & Nevis

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Spellings & scripts(measured from records)

HarveyLatin(measured from records)
하비Hangul(measured from records)

Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.

Meaning & origin(measured from records)

(i) from the Breton personal name Aeruiu or Haerviu, literally 'battle-worthy'; (ii) from Irish Gaelic O hAirmheadhaigh, 'descendant of Airmheadhach', of uncertain origin

Sources 1

  • Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]

Attested across 2 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Harvey 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 Harvey is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
US United States#230115,6621 in 2.9K116KHarvey575
GB United Kingdom#112≈42,000 est.≈1 in 1.5K30Harvey320
CA Canada#162≈18,000 est.≈1 in 2.1K23Harvey267
AU Australia#120≈16,000 est.≈1 in 1.5K681Harvey248
EG Egypt—≈13,000 est.≈1 in 8K—Harvey37
NZ New Zealand#144≈2,700 est.≈1 in 1.9K68Harvey134
KN St. Kitts & Nevis—1271 in 424127—12

115,662 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; NRS — Baby names Scotland full list (1974–present); Australian national given names (aggregated state BDM); Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender; DIA — Baby name popularity (1900–present); St Kitts & Nevis — Register of Electors 2026. 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)

Harvey is also recorded as 3 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • German surname2 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Germany, United States, United Kingdom, Austria

    Also written Hárvey

  • Hindi surname3 spellings in the group

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

    Languages: Hindi, Urdu

    Also written Härvëy

  • Polish surname15 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Poland, United States, United Kingdom, Bulgaria

    Languages: Polish, Croatian, Bulgarian

    Also written Харви, Kharvi, Harvi

86 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)

Harvey 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.

  • In French, From Breton name Haerviu/Hariveu, possibly meaning “battle worthy”.

    as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)

  • In French, From Breton/Old French Hervé, possibly 'battle worthy'.

    as a nameDictionnaire généalogique des prénoms

  • mainly of English origin, in Ulster and County Wexford, but sometimes a shortened Anglicized form of Gaelic 6 hAirmheadhaigh ‘descendant of Airmheadhach', a personal name probably meaning ‘esteemed’. It seems to be a derivative of Airmheadh, the name borne by a mythological physician.

    as a nameDictionary of American Family Names

  • Transferred use of the surname, which is derived from a Breton personal name composed of haer ‘battle’ + vy ‘worthy’. It was introduced to Britain by Bretons who settled in East Anglia and elsewhere in the wake of the Norman Conquest. Short forms: Harvie).

    as a nameA concise dictionary of first names

  • shortened Anghcized form of Gaelic O hEarchaidh ‘descendant of EarchadK, a personal name of uncertain origin.

    as a nameDictionary of American Family Names

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)

150016001700180019002000William Harvey, b. 1578Paul Harvey, b. 1882Forrester Harvey, b. 1884Laurence Harvey, b. 1928David Harvey, b. 1935Steve Harvey, b. 1957Rodney Harvey, b. 1967Adrian Lester, b. 1968PJ Harvey, b. 1969Samantha Harvey, b. 1975

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 93 sources across 45 countries.

Official registers attesting Harvey
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20102010116K#266
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20002000112K#247
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20202020112K#273
KN St. Kitts & NevisSt Kitts & Nevis — Register of Electors 20262026127#79

Reference works 8

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 Harvey mean, and where does it come from?
(i) from the Breton personal name Aeruiu or Haerviu, literally 'battle-worthy'; (ii) from Irish Gaelic O hAirmheadhaigh, 'descendant of Airmheadhach', of uncertain origin Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
What are other forms of the name Harvey?
In the etymology graph, Hervey, Harvie and Haerviu are forms of the same name in other languages.
In which country does Harvey have the most bearers?
In the United States, the national register counted about 116 thousand people named Harvey, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled harvey.
Where is Harvey most common?
Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Harvey is densest in St. Kitts & Nevis — about 1 in 424 people — even though United States holds more of our records for it.
How common is the name Harvey?
In the United States, the national register counted 115,662 people named Harvey in 2010, about 1 in 2.9 thousand residents.
How common is Harvey compared with other names?
In the United States, Harvey is the 230th most common surname of 6,282,806 surnames recorded there.

What do you want to know about Harvey?

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Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/harvey

The same 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), 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, “Harvey” — the 230th most common surname in United States. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Harvey parses inside a full name →