Haward

given name · English · Latin script

Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise

Haward is a given name, most frequently recorded in Zambia, where it is the 88th most common given name. It appears chiefly in English and Swahili, written in the Latin script. Recorded meaning: from ON Hávarðr, 'high or chief warden/guardian'; first attested Hauuart 1066 DB (Y).

rarermore common
  • ZMZambia1 in 677
  • USUnited States1 in 2.2M
  • MWMalawi1 in 4.2K

carrying the name, one hue, darker where it is more common. Hover a country for its figure.

5.1K

in 5 countries

Sources
94

3.8K records

Official registry-verified

Meaning & origin

from ON Hávarðr, 'high or chief warden/guardian'; first attested Hauuart 1066 DB (Y)

Sources 1

  • A Dictionary of English Surnames

Where in the world

Sorted by bearers counted by national registers, records where none counts.

Where Haward is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
ZM Zambia#883,1412 rec.1Haward7
US United States1,4042K rec.315Haward94
ZA South Africa186254 rec.Haward12
KE Kenya12035 rec.Haward9
GB United Kingdom99545 rec.Haward70
MW Malawi#379993 rec.Haward7
PH Philippines9162 rec.Haward8
VE Venezuela6666 rec.Haward6
CO Colombia5425 rec.Haward15
PE Peru4243 rec.Haward8
TZ Tanzania4242 rec.Haward8
CR Costa Rica3334 rec.7Haward7

Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table. How that works.

Languages

  • English4.8K79%
  • Swahili3646%
  • Spanish3446%
  • 1342%
  • Portuguese351%
Show as table
Languages in which the name is recorded
NameRecordsNote
English4,75979%
Swahili3646%
Spanish3446%
1342%
Portuguese351%

Language is read off each record's context, not declared by the bearer; a share is of all records for this spelling.

Other recorded senses

Haward is also recorded in one other lexicon, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

  • In English, a different form of Hayward and Howard

    as a nameEncyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]

Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.

Over time

051015192019301940195011 · 1922

Show as table
Haward in SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present), United States, 1917–1956
Yearrecords
19176
19196
19206
19218
192211
19238
19247
19257
19267
192711
192810
19296
193010
193110
19326
19339
19347
19365
19375
19385
19397
19406
19416
19425
19565

US SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present)25 years between 1917–1956. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.

Notable people with this name

The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).

Evidence

Attested in 13 sources across 6 countries.

Official registers attesting Haward
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20202020315#67,529
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20002000164#101,654
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20102010126#133,863
US United StatesSSA — National Baby Names (1880–present)192711
US United StatesSSA — National Baby Names (1880–present)192211
US United StatesSSA — National Baby Names (1880–present)193110
US United StatesSSA — National Baby Names (1880–present)193010
US United StatesSSA — National Baby Names (1880–present)192810
US United StatesSSA — National Baby Names (1880–present)19339
US United StatesSSA — National Baby Names (1880–present)19238
US United StatesSSA — National Baby Names (1880–present)19218
CR Costa RicaTSE — electoral roll (padrón) names7#6,592

Reference works 2

  • The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
  • Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)

These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.

Register rows as of the 2026-09-12 data build · 42 rows in the corpus for this spelling.

Frequently asked questions

How common is the name Haward?
Our records include 5,127 bearers of Haward across 5 countries — a sample of the full distribution.
In which country does Haward have the most bearers?
Haward is most frequently recorded in Zambia, where it is most often spelled haward.
How common is Haward compared with other names?
In Zambia, Haward is the 88th most common given name of 8,241 given names recorded there.
Is Haward a male or female name?
Haward is a male name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
What does the name Haward mean?
Recorded meaning: from ON Hávarðr, 'high or chief warden/guardian'; first attested Hauuart 1066 DB (Y)
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/haward

The same payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. Rate-limited for casual use. Bulk access and licensing.

About this data

measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated

Data snapshot . Figures are rebuilt periodically and will change.

Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.

Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.

Cite this page Mondonomo, “Haward” — the 88th most common given name in Zambia. Data snapshot 2026-09-12.

See how Haward parses inside a full name →