Harold
Harold reached its high-water mark in 1924 at number 13, and has been recorded 554,280 times in all. In 2025 it ranked 991st. About 160,000 Harolds are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 69.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Harold boys named Harold
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 554,280
- Estimated living today
- 160,000
- Median age today
- 69
- Peak year
- 1924
- Best rank
- 13th
- Rank in 2025
- 991st
- First recorded
- 1880
- Girls / boys
- 2,648 / 551,632
How old the living Harolds are
born that year still alive today
Of the 554,280 babies given the name since 1880, about 160,000 are alive — 29 in every hundred. Roughly 4,700 of them are children and 96,000 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1956 and half after.
An estimate, not a count. SSA births aged forward through SSA cohort life tables, which know nothing about who left the country or arrived in it — so for a name that mostly came to America rather than being born in it, this is a floor rather than a figure. Where you fall among living Americans.
Where the name comes from
Origin Old English, Old Norse
From a merger of Old English Hereweald and Old English Harold (itself from Old Norse Haraldr), both from Proto-Germanic *Harjawaldaz. Related to Walter, which has the elements reversed. Cognate with da, nn, sv Harald, fo, is Haraldur.
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Harolds
- Harold Pinter (1930–2008)British playwright
- Harold Macmillan (1894–1986)Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1957 to 1963
- Harold Wilson (1916–1995)Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1964-1970 and 1974-1976
- Harold Urey (1893–1981)American physical chemist
- Harold Godwinson (1022–1066)Anglo-Saxon King of England in 1066
- Harold Lloyd (1893–1971)American actor and comedian
- Harold Harefoot (1016–1040)King of England from 1035 to 1040
- Harold Bloom (1930–2019)American literary critic, scholar, and writer
People named Harold with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Harold is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Harold is most concentrated in West Virginia (2.2×), North Dakota (1.9×), Nebraska (1.9×), South Dakota (1.9×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 1924
The most popular boys’ names the year Harold peaked:
Harold elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| France boys | Harold | 3,715 | 250th |
| England and Wales boys | Harold | 738 | 394th |
| Belgium boys | Harold | 480 | 476th |
| Ireland boys | Harold | 161 | 135th |
| Scotland boys | Harold | 18 | 248th |
| Poland boys | Harold | 4 birth registrations | 732nd |
Counts come from each country's own records and are not comparable with the US figures above, which cover different years and a different definition of a recorded name. Where a country writes the name several ways, the spellings are added together and the most common is shown. A row marked name registrations is counting something else: Portugal ranks each of a child's two given names separately, so a girl registered Maria Leonor is in both the Maria row and the Leonor row, and that figure is not a number of children.
Harold: rank by region
In 2025, Harold was given 5 times or more in 1 region of Belgium.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wallonia | Harold | 267 | 10 |
In 2025, with the country taken in 11 areas rather than 3, Harold appears in the lists for Province of Walloon Brabant (48th).
Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Belgium below 5 children – and published nothing after. So a region missing here is one where the name fell outside what was published, not one where it went unused. Places are shared where names tie, and the further down a list a place is, the more names can share it.
Harold among the living
How many people each country's register counts under the name, rather than how many were given it in any one year. Each register was read on one date, and they are not the same date.
| Country | Spelling | First forename | Any forename |
|---|---|---|---|
| the Netherlands boys | Harold | 3,298 | 5,040 |
| Finland boys | Harold | 20 | 60 |
| the Netherlands girls | Harold | — | 36 |
A count of people on a register – the Netherlands on 1 January 2018, Finland on 4 August 2026 – and not of births, so it cannot be compared with the figures above. Names with very few bearers are withheld, and a dash in the first-forename column means the register would not say rather than that nobody goes by it.
Where Harold lives in Spain
Not a count of births but of people: 634 men called Harold were living in Spain on 1 January 2025, of every age, born in any year. Where they live is not spread evenly.
Men: the provinces where it is densest
| Province | Spelling | People | Per thousand | Place there |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alicante/Alacant | Harold | 55 | 0.055 | 1,217 |
| Palmas, Las | Harold | 31 | 0.053 | 1,504 |
| Santa Cruz de Tenerife | Harold | 26 | 0.049 | 1,624 |
| Madrid | Harold | 150 | 0.044 | 1,225 |
| Araba/Álava | Harold | 7 | 0.042 | 1,324 |
| Navarra | Harold | 14 | 0.041 | 1,385 |
Listed in 28 of Spain's 52 provinces. In the other 24 it is either held by fewer than 5 people – the point below which the source withholds a name – or it fell past the 5,000 names the source will print for one province. Neither means nobody there is called it. The rate is the source's own, not a share worked out here.
Related names
Harold against another name
Two names on one chart, with the year one overtook the other.
Try it on yourself
Source: US Social Security Administration, national and state baby-name files, 1880–2025. Counts include only births registered with the SSA, and names with fewer than five births in a year are not published. The living estimate applies SSA cohort life tables to those births; it counts people born in the United States, so it misses anyone who arrived later and anyone who has left.