Harvey
Harvey is a boy's name that peaked in 1921, when it was the 87th most popular in the United States. In 2025 it ranked 251st. About 49,000 Harveys are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 62.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Harvey boys named Harvey
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 128,792
- Estimated living today
- 49,000
- Median age today
- 62
- Peak year
- 1921
- Best rank
- 87th
- Rank in 2025
- 251st
- First recorded
- 1880
- Girls / boys
- 867 / 127,925
How old the living Harveys are
born that year still alive today
Of the 128,792 babies given the name since 1880, about 49,000 are alive — 38 in every hundred. Roughly 12,000 of them are children and 23,000 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1963 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 Celtic languages
From Haerviu, name of a Breton saint, from obt hoiarn (“iron”) + viu (“blazing”). Cognate with modern Breton Haerviu.
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Harveys
- Lee Harvey Oswald (1939–1963)American former marine who assassinated John F. Kennedy
- Harvey Keitel (born 1939)American actor
- Harvey Milk (1930–1978)American politician and gay rights activist
- Harvey Weinstein (born 1952)American film producer and sex offender
- Harvey J. Alter (born 1935)American medical researcher
- Harvey Elliott (born 2003)English association football player
- Harvey Fierstein (born 1952)American actor and playwright
- Harvey Williams Cushing (1869–1939)American neurosurgeon
People named Harvey with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Harvey is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Harvey is most concentrated in South Dakota (2.4×), North Dakota (2.3×), Mississippi (1.8×), North Carolina (1.8×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 1921
The most popular boys’ names the year Harvey peaked:
Harvey elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| England and Wales boys | Harvey | 36,020 | 27th |
| Scotland boys | Harvey | 1,308 | 84th |
| New Zealand boys | Harvey | 645 | 56th |
| Ireland boys | Harvey | 640 | 136th |
| Northern Ireland boys | Harvey | 610 | 79th |
| France boys | Harvey | 230 | 2,098th |
| Belgium boys | Harvey | 89 | 607th |
| Poland boys | Harvey | 15 birth registrations | 442nd |
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.
Harvey: rank by region
In 2025, Harvey was given 5 times or more in 1 region of Belgium.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flanders | Harvey | 806 | 6 |
In 2023, with the country taken in 11 areas rather than 3, Harvey appears in the lists for Province of East Flanders (261st).
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.
Harvey by city
| City | Years | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Berlin boys | 2017–2023 | 4 | 578th |
One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.
Harvey 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Finland boys | Harvey | 13 | 18 |
A count of people on a register – 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.
Related names
Harvey 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.