Howard
Masculine · “high guardian”
Howard is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 346,666 boys against 1,676 girls since 1880. See Howard as a girl 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 was already in use when US birth records began in 1880 — it is at least 145 years old. The typical Howard alive today was born around 1936, making them about 89 years old. About 122,000 people named Howard are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Howard most popular?
Howard peaked in 1919, reaching #24 nationally. Today it ranks #1002, 978 places below that high. See the whole 1919 chart.
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
- 1880
- Most boys named
- 19217,713 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #24reached in 1919
- Change vs 2022
- +8.7%226 in 2025, from 208
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
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, Minnesota.
Howards among us
people named Howard are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 7,558 born in 2025 was named Howard
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Lee test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Howard's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Lee climbed just as high around 1900, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Lee's path sketches the road Howard is walking now.
Howard has held the top-100 across 8 different decades — it has never depended on fashion, and names like that read the same at any age.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Where Howard is headed
Howard should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
High confidence — fitted on official counts through 2025.
A damped-trend projection of the official birth data — a sketch of momentum, not a promise. Every name's forecast, ranked.
Howard beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Howard in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
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
Masculine · #1002 in the U.S.
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 122,000 people named Howard are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Howard in 2025?
- Howard ranks #1002 among US boy names in 2025, with 226 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Howard?
- About 1 in every 7,558 US boys born in 2025 was named Howard — 226 in all.
- Will my child share the name Howard with classmates?
- Howard will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Howard
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Benito#1002 · Brennan#1002 · Langston#999 · Arden#1005 · Yeshua#1005 · Kabir#999 · Noa#1005 · Lev#999
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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