Harley

11,376 people in the United States were counted with the surname Harley in the 2020 census, making it the 3,081st most common in the country. That is about one person in 26,300.

By the numbers

People: 11,376
Rank: 3,081st
How common: 1 in 26,300
Per 100,000: 3.8

Where the name comes from

Origin Old English

From Old English hær (“rock”) or hara (“hare”) + lēah (“wood, clearing”). Equivalent.

Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Who bears the name

How people with the surname Harley described their own race and Hispanic origin at the 2020 census:

White, not Hispanic 49.5%
Black, not Hispanic 38.6%
Two or more races, not Hispanic 5.7%
Hispanic or Latino 3.4%
American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic 2.2%
Asian or Pacific Islander, not Hispanic 0.6%

Notable people called Harley

Steve Harley (1951–2024)British musician and songwriter
Robert Harley, 1st Earl of Oxford and Earl Mortimer (1661–1724)English politician
Thomas Harley (born 2001)American and Canadian ice hockey player
William S. Harley (1880–1943)American businessman and co-founder of the Harley-Davidson Motor Company

People named Harley with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).

Surnames like Harley

Also a first name

Harley has been given to 71,872 American babies as a first name since 1880, peaking in 1994. See it as a given name.

Try it on yourself

Source: US Census Bureau, Frequently Occurring Surnames, 2020. The Census describes the file as the surnames borne by 100 or more people; rarer names are not published. The line is not quite exact, and 617 published names come in under it, the smallest at 92 people. Race and Hispanic origin are self-reported. Rates are worked out against the 298.9 million people the file's own figures are calculated on, which is fewer than the census counted in all: the difference is everyone whose surname was too rare to publish.