First name origins & meanings:
- German: Flax
- Old English: Rabbit archer
First name variations: Harlin, Harley, Harlow, Harford, Harlen, Harlenn, Harlyn, Harlynn, Harlan Last name origins & meanings:
- English (mainly northeastern): habitational name from any of
various minor places (including perhaps some now lost) named from Old
English hār ‘gray’, hara ‘hare’, or hær
‘rock’, ‘tumulus’ + land ‘tract of land’, ‘estate’, ‘cultivated
land’, notably Harland in Kirkbymoorside. North Yorkshire, which is
named from hær + land. This surname has been present
in northern Ireland since the 17th century.
- French
(Normandy): nickname for someone given to stirring up trouble, from
the present participle of medieval French hareler ‘to create a
disturbance’.
- George and Michael Harland were Quakers who emigrated from Durham,
England, to Ireland. George went on to DE in 1687 and became
governor in 1695, while Michael went to Philadelphia. George Harland’s
descendants, who dropped the final -d from their name, included
a number of prominent American politicians, in particular James Harlan
(1820–99), who became a senator and secretary of the interior.
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