Name Awesome

Harald

#5,950 in 2025Boys' name

Army + leader, through Haraldr

Harald has been given to 811 babies in the U.S. since 1913. In 2025 it ranked #5,950 of 13,926 boys’ names in use. Its peak year was 1925, with 24 recorded.

Babies named Harald, 2025

1 in 221,000

Harald over time, 1880–2025

Boys
010203018801900192019401960198020002020

Based on births in the U.S. Babies given the name each year. Hover the chart — or focus it and use the arrow keys — for any year. Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Harald: meaning, origin, and history

Army + leader, through Haraldr

North Germanic languages and Old Norse

What Harald means

Harald belongs to the name family reached through Harald → Haraldr. Its meaning is “army + leader”.

Origin, language, and formation

Harald is used in Danish, Estonian, German, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk and Swedish. Its origins include North Germanic languages and Old Norse.

Harald comes through Old Norse Haraldr and Proto-Germanic *Harjawaldaz.

Related names and everyday forms

Related names include Harold, Hervald, Haraldur and Haraldr.

Pronunciation and spelling

In German, Harald is pronounced /ˈhaʁalt/.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 811 boys were recorded with the name Harald between 1913 and 2025. Its highest annual count was 24 in 1925; its best national rank was #1,551 in 1925.

Sources & methodologyReferences, data & attribution

Meaning, origin, and language notes draw on the references below.

American popularity figures use published Social Security Administration records for this exact spelling. Counts below five for a name, sex, and year are omitted.

Wiktionary material is available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

How common is Harald?

Everything below is computed from the 2025 data — the most recent year available.

Among all babies, 2025
1 in 221,000
15 of 3,315,165 births
Among boys only
1 in 114,000
<0.01% of boys
Rank, 2025
#5,950
of 13,926 boys’ names in use
Coin-flip room size
153,194 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Harald sits on the popularity scale

Rarest published (5 a year)#1 — Liam (20,818)

Chance at least one other child shares the name

If the other children were drawn at random from the 2025 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.

Class of 20Under 1%
Class of 30Under 1%
Grade of 100Under 1%
School of 500Under 1%

Put another way: gather 153,194 children born in 2025 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Harald. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Haralds were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Harald was born before 1943 — so the typical Harald is around 82 today.

Median birth year
1943
About 82 years old
Biggest decade
1920s
20.5% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
8.6%
Mostly a past generation
Recorded since 1950
350
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1920s — 20.5% of all recorded uses (166).

Is Harald rising or falling?

Rank movement and count movement can disagree — the number of distinct names in use keeps growing, so a name holding a steady count still slides down the list. Both are shown.

Rank vs 1 year ago
+638
Places climbed
Rank vs 5 years ago
New entry
Not ranked then
Rank vs 10 years ago
—
Not ranked then
Births vs 10 years ago
—
Not published both years
Share of its own peak
62.5%
Peak was 1925 (24)
Years since peak
100
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Volatile
26.8% average annual change
Best rank ever
#1,551
1925

Spellings of Harald

Harald is not the most common spelling — Harold is, with 52.5% against Harald's 0.08%.

Grouped by closeness of spelling (up to two letter changes), same sex, with a floor on all-time use. It catches Sophia/Sofia and Aiden/Ayden, and misses spellings that sound alike but look different, like Sean and Shawn.

Where Harald is used

Across 1910–2025, Harald was most concentrated in New Jersey — about 1 in — boys, against 1 in 1,426,888 across all states with data. It was least common in Texas (1 in —).

00 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1New Jersey1 in —
  2. 2New York1 in —
  3. 3Texas1 in —

Shading is the share of that state's recorded boys given this name, not the raw count — otherwise the map would just show which states are biggest. Unshaded states have no published records for this period. U.S. birth records suppress state-year counts below 5; state counts therefore don't add up to the national total. Every state links to its full rankings. Harald has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Harald around the world

Where Harald ranks in official birth records elsewhere in the world. Rankings only — the number of births isn’t comparable between places, so it isn’t shown.

  • England & Wales
    1997–2025
    #5,137
    in 2025
  • France
    1902–2025
    #2,585
    in 2025
  • Norway
    1880–2025
    #109
    in 2025
  • South Australia
    1952–2008
    #726
    in 2008

Popularity data from Office for National Statistics, Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques, Statistics Norway and Consumer and Business Services (South Australia). ONS data under Open Government Licence v3.0. INSEE data under Licence Ouverte / Etalab 2.0. SSB, CBS SA data under CC BY 4.0.

Harald by the numbers

The raw record for each sex the name is used for.

As a boy's name

Rank in 2025
#5,950
Trend vs 5 yrs ago
New entry
Best rank ever
#1,551
1925
Peak year
1925
24 that year
First recorded
1913
Last recorded
2025
All-time count
811
Count in 2025
15

Names similar to Harald

Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.

HardenHarmanHardinHaroonHarlynHarborHarounHarlonHarlinHarukiHarunHarvardHarutoHardingHarvinHarjotHarlowHarlieHarrelHartleyHarlenHarlemHardieHaris

Sibling names for Harald

Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.

Explore around Harald

Top names of 1925, Harald's peak yearThe 1920s in fullOther names that peaked in 1925Boys' names starting with HDanish Boy NamesNorwegian Boy NamesUncommon Swedish Boy NamesViking Boy Names