Howard

Where Howard comes from

Medieval personal name from Middle English Howard, Howarde, from Old Norse Hávarðr, from hár (“high”) + varðr (“guard”). In some cases a variant of Heward, from Old French Huard.
— Wiktionary's entry for Howard
  • Germanic
  • 2 syllables
Along the way
  1. 1874
    Howard Carter born
    British egyptologist
  2. 1880
    First SSA year
    Already #44 among boys — 357 babies in the first year on record.
  3. 1905
    Howard Hughes born
    American aviator, engineer, industrialist, and film producer
  4. 1920
    Peak, #24
    7,466 babies named Howard — more than any year before or since.
  5. 1961
    The fade
    The first year with half the peak's births — down to #109.
In the dictionary
  • A male given name from the Germanic languages, transferred back from the surname. Short form: Howie.
Namesakes
  • Howard Carter · British egyptologist, 1874–1939
  • Howard Hughes · American aviator, engineer, industrialist, and film producer, 1905–1976
  • Howard Florey · Australian pathologist, 1898–1968
  • Howard Hawks · American film director, producer and screenwriter, 1896–1977
  • Howard Zinn · American historian, playwright, and socialist thinker, 1922–2010

Sources: the origin note and dictionary entry are quoted from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0); the namesakes come from Wikidata (CC0); the milestones are worked out from the SSA record.