Howard
Feminine · “high guardian”
Howard is given to boys far more often — 346,666 boys against 1,676 girls since 1880. See Howard as a boy name
Howard is one of the great English surnames turned into a first name, and its own origin is a genuine argument rather than a settled fact. Two candidates have been on the table for a century: a Norse compound meaning a high guardian, and a plain Old English occupational word for the man who minded the pigs. Both are sound on the evidence. Neither has won, and the name's grandeur turns out to be entirely the family's doing rather than the word's.
How old is the name Howard?
Howard first appears in US birth records in 1887 — 138 years ago. The typical Howard alive today was born around 1932, making them about 93 years old. About 600 people named Howard are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Howard most popular?
Howard peaked in 1888, reaching #959 nationally. See the whole 1888 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From A surname from either a Norse or an Old English word to Howard
The story of Howard
The surname's fame comes from a single family. The Howards became dukes of Norfolk in the fifteenth century and have been England's premier dukes ever since, which put them close enough to the crown to be dangerous. Two of Henry the Eighth's six queens came out of that household, Anne Boleyn through her mother and Catherine Howard directly, and both were executed, along with assorted uncles and cousins over the following decades. A surname that visible gets borrowed, and by the nineteenth century English and American parents were using it as a first name in quantity, alongside Percy, Stanley, Sidney and Clarence. In America it went further than any of those and stayed considerably longer.
Meaningscholars disagree
high guardian, or else a keeper of pigs
The first reading takes the name from an Old Norse compound of the words for high and guardian, which fits the counties where the surname is thickest on the ground. The second takes it from an Old English word for the keeper of the hogs, exactly the kind of humble occupational surname English produced in enormous quantity. A third candidate is usually rejected on grounds of sound. Reference works split between the first two, and the ducal family's own antiquarians could be relied on to prefer the grander one.
How the name formed
- A surname from either a Norse or an Old English word
- The Howards made dukes of Norfolk
- Borrowed as a first name in the nineteenth century
- Ordinary in America for most of the twentieth
Related forms: Havardr
Pronouncing Howard
HOW-erd
Two syllables, stress firmly on the first, with the second reduced almost to nothing. It is HOW-erd rather than how-ARD. The spelling ending in -ward is a separate surname and a separate name, and the two are worth keeping apart on paper.
Nicknames for Howard
Moderate
What the data says
146 years of official birth records
The long climb, and where it stands now
The same years in position rather than babies
- First recorded
- 1887
- Most girls named
- 193054 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #959reached in 1888
- Change vs 1985
- 0.0%6 in 1987, from 6
Rank is a position, a count is a headcount, and they move independently — a name can hold its rank while the number of babies behind it falls. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration.
Howard in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Havardr in Old Norse — related form
Howards among us
people named Howard are estimated to be alive in the US today
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
Questions parents actually ask
Fashion outlook
Howard sits outside the current charts, and that is its own kind of answer: naming cycles can only date the names they carried up. A name this rare has no decade stamped on it — it cannot go out of fashion, because it was never in.
Based on 146 years of naming cycles. How we read them
The trade-off
- It is completely familiar and completely unambiguous in both speech and spelling, which few surname names manage.
- Howie is an unusually warm short form for a name that is otherwise formal.
- It has an unbroken record in English going back many centuries, which almost no first name of this shape can claim.
- It is strongly of a generation and has not yet come back the way other surname names of its era have.
- The meaning cannot be given straight: a child who asks gets two answers, and one of them is pigs.
- The spelling is on the register for girls too, in very small numbers, and reads male to essentially everyone.
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What they receive
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Howard
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Howards are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 600 people named Howard are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Howard in 2025?
- Howard is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Howard with classmates?
- Howard will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More H names
The most-given names starting with H, all years combined.
Helen#461 · Heather#1261 · Hannah#56 · Hazel#21 · Holly#416 · Hailey#104 · Haley#861 · Heidi#340
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Howard? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Howard and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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