Horan
surname · Latin script
Meaning: (i) from Irish Gaelic Ó hUghroin, descendant of Ughron, 'warlike one'; (ii) from Ó hOdhráin, descendant of Odhrán, 'dun-coloured one'; (iii) variant of Hanrahan
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/ˈhɔɹən/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Horan is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country.
- IEIreland≈1 in 4.8K(inferred from the name graph)
- AUAustralia≈1 in 16K
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 20K
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)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 386 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 4.8K (inferred from the name graph)
10,711 people, 2010
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Ireland, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(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 Irish Gaelic Ó hUghroin, descendant of Ughron, 'warlike one'; (ii) from Ó hOdhráin, descendant of Odhrán, 'dun-coloured one'; (iii) variant of Hanrahan
Sources 1
- Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Where in the world(measured from records)
Horan 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 | — | 10,711 | 1 in 31K | 11K | Horan | 386 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | ≈3,300 est. | ≈1 in 20K | listed | Horan | 158 |
| IT Italy | — | ≈1,600 est. | ≈1 in 38K | — | Horan | 12 |
| AU Australia | — | ≈1,600 est. | ≈1 in 16K | — | Horan | 146 |
| SY Syria | — | ≈1,300 est. | ≈1 in 14K | — | Horan | 10 |
| IE Ireland | #382 | ≈1,100 est. | ≈1 in 4.8K | — | Horan | 103 |
| NZ New Zealand | — | ≈250 est. | ≈1 in 19K | — | Horan | 66 |
| IS Iceland | — | ≈23 est. | ≈1 in 16K | — | Horan | 2 |
10,711 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 hanks-dictionary-surnames-1988 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)
Horan 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.
^ . (Connacht) Anglicized form of Gaelic 6 hUghroin ‘descendant of Ughron', a personal name from ughrach ‘warlike’. 2. Anglicized form of Gaelic 6 hOdhrain ‘descendant of Odhrdn', a personal name (borne, according to legend, by St. Patrick’s charioteer) from odhar ‘dun-colored’. 3. reduced form of Hanrahan.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
‘descendant of Ugliron’, a personal name from ughrach warlike. 2. Anglicized form of Gael. O hOdhrain ‘des¬ cendant of Odhrdn', a personal name (borne, according to legend, by St Patrick’s charioteer) from odhar dun-col¬ oured (cf. Heron 3). 3. var. of Hanrahan. Vars.: Whooley, Hoole.
as a nameThe Oxford Names Companion - The definitive guide to Surnames, First Names, and Place Names of the British Isles
‘descendant of Ughron’, a personal name from ughrach warlike. 2. Anglicized form of Gael. O hOdhrain ‘descendant of Odhran’, a personal name (borne, according to legend, by St Patrick’s charioteer) from odhar dun-coloured (cf. Heron 3). 3. var. of Hanrahan.
as a nameA dictionary of surnames
In English, A surname from Irish [in turn originating as a patronymic].
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Swedish, definite singular of hora
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)
- Cornelius Horanb. 1947IElaicised Irish priest known for disrupting major sporting events in 2003-04
- Roy Horanb. 1950USAmerican actor
- James Horanb. 1954USAmerican actor and voice actor (born 1954)
- Gerard Horanb. 1962GBEnglish actor
- Monica Horanb. 1963USAmerican actress
- Celina Jadeb. 1985CNnot in their usual nameHong Kong-American actress, model, singer and martial artist (born 1985)
- Chiaki Horanb. 1988JPJapanese actress
- Niall Horanb. 1993IEIrish singer-songwriter
- Lindsey Heapsb. 1994USnot in their usual nameAmerican soccer player
- Adelind HoranUSactor
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)
Attested in 32 sources across 18 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 11K | #3,345 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 10K | #3,216 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 9.9K | #3,514 |
| GB United Kingdom | A Dictionary of Surnames (Hanks & Hodges, 1988) | — | — | — |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 7
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Rymut, Słownik nazwisk współcześnie w Polsce używanych (10 vols, IJP PAN, Kraków 1992–1994) — every Polish surname in the PESEL register at the end of 1990, with bearer counts nationally and per voivodeship1990
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 Horan mean, and where does it come from?
- (i) from Irish Gaelic Ó hUghroin, descendant of Ughron, 'warlike one'; (ii) from Ó hOdhráin, descendant of Odhrán, 'dun-coloured one'; (iii) variant of Hanrahan Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
- How do you pronounce Horan?
- A machine transcription gives /ˈhɔɹən/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does Horan have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 11 thousand people named Horan, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled horan.
- How common is the name Horan?
- In the United States, the national register counted 10,711 people named Horan in 2010, about 1 in 31 thousand residents.
- How common is Horan compared with other names?
- In Ireland, Horan is the 382nd most common surname of 73,729 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Horan?
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/horanThe 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, “Horan” — the 382nd most common surname in Ireland. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.