Haroun
Masculine name of Arabic origin meaning "highborn" or "freeman".
Name Census estimates that about 349 living Americans carry the first name Haroun. The name is used almost exclusively for boys. The average person named Haroun today is around 11 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Haroun births was 2023 (28 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Haroun. Below you will find a gender breakdown showing how the name splits between male and female registrations, a year-by-year popularity chart stretching back to 1880, decade-level totals, the top US states for this name, its meaning and etymology, and a set of frequently asked questions with data-backed answers.
For a British comparison, Name Census UK has a UK baby-name profile for Haroun with official rankings and popularity over time.
People living today
349
~ 1 in 982,104 Americans
Peak year
2023
28 babies that year
Average age
11
years old
2024 SSA rank
#4,003
Tracked since 1988
Census
Haroun in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 402 people with the first name Haroun, which placed it at #24,093 in the published first-name tables. This is a snapshot of people who already had the name at the time of the Census.
The SSA sections elsewhere on this page answer a different question: how often parents gave the name to babies over time. The "people living today" figure on this page is different again: it is a current estimate built from SSA birth records and age-based survival rates, so the two numbers are not expected to match exactly.
2020 Census rank
#24,093
National first-name rank
People counted
402
402 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.1
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
40.0% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Haroun
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Haroun is White at 40.0%. The next largest groups are Black (34.8%) and Asian/Pacific Islander (14.9%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself.
The bar chart below shows how people with the first name Haroun described their own race and ethnicity on the 2020 Census form. The Census Bureau groups responses into six broad categories: White, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, Asian and Pacific Islander, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Two or More Races. When a category has too few respondents for a given name, the Bureau suppresses the figure to protect individual privacy, which is why some names show fewer than six slices.
Percentages are shown so the breakdown is easy to read across every published category. Because the 2020 Census first-name file also includes raw headcounts for each group, Name Census can show those alongside the percentages in the legend and hover tooltip.
Keep in mind that these are self-reported numbers. A first name does not determine a person's race or ethnicity, and the distribution you see here reflects the specific population who happened to carry the name Haroun at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White40.0% · 161
- Black or African American34.8% · 140
- Asian and Pacific Islander14.9% · 60
- Two or more races7.2% · 29
- Hispanic or Latino2.5% · 10
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.5% · 2
Popularity
Haroun: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Haroun from the 1980s through to the 2020s, spanning 5 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2010s, with 141 total registrations. The name continues to be given at rates close to its all-time high, suggesting it has not yet fallen out of fashion.
Babies born per year
Decades
Haroun by decade
The table below breaks the full SSA timeline into ten-year windows. Each row shows how many male and female babies were given the name Haroun during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Harouns live
Origin
Meaning and history of Haroun
The name Haroun is derived from the Arabic language and has its origins in the Middle East. It is a variant spelling of the name Harun, which is the Arabic form of the Biblical name Aaron. The name Aaron comes from the Hebrew word "Aharon" which means "high mountain" or "exalted".
Haroun is a popular name in the Islamic world, particularly in the Arab countries and regions with significant Muslim populations. It is believed to have been first used during the early days of Islam in the 7th century CE. The name gained prominence due to its association with Harun al-Rashid, the fifth Abbasid Caliph who ruled from 786 to 809 CE. He is renowned for his role in the famous collection of Middle Eastern folk tales, One Thousand and One Nights (also known as Arabian Nights).
One of the earliest recorded mentions of the name Haroun can be found in the Qur'an, the holy book of Islam. In the Qur'an, the name is used in reference to the Biblical figure Aaron, who was the brother of Moses and a prophet in the Abrahamic religions.
Throughout history, there have been several notable individuals who bore the name Haroun. One of the earliest was Haroun al-Rashid (763-809 CE), the Abbasid Caliph mentioned earlier, who is remembered for his patronage of the arts and literature during the Islamic Golden Age. Another famous bearer of the name was Haroun ibn Yahya (786-861 CE), a renowned mathematician and astronomer who made significant contributions to the fields of algebra and spherical geometry.
In the realm of literature, the name Haroun is immortalized in the novel "Haroun and the Sea of Stories" by the British author Salman Rushdie, published in 1990. The book is a work of magical realism that explores the power of storytelling and the importance of free speech.
Other notable individuals named Haroun include Haroun Tazieff (1914-1998), a French volcanologist and explorer who studied various volcanic eruptions around the world, and Haroun Rashid Dhanani (1879-1963), an influential Indian businessman and philanthropist who made significant contributions to education and healthcare in East Africa.
People
Haroun + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Haroun as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with H
Other first names starting with H with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Haroun: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Haroun?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 349 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Haroun going back to 1880 and adjusting each cohort for expected survival using CDC actuarial life tables. The result is an age-weighted living-bearer count, not a raw birth total. That works out to about 1 in 982,104 US residents.
Is Haroun a common name?
We classify Haroun as "Very Rare". It ranks above 80.8% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 352 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Haroun most popular?
The single biggest year for Haroun was 2023, when 28 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Haroun is about 11 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Haroun in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 402 people with the name Haroun, or 0.13 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #24,093 in the national Census ranking for first names.
Why is the Census count different from the living estimate?
Because they measure different things. The Census figure is a count of people who had the name Haroun in 2020. The living estimate aims to answer a current question instead: how many people with the name are alive today, based on SSA birth records and age-based survival rates. Since one number is a 2020 snapshot and the other is a present-day estimate, they are not expected to be identical.
What does the Census say about the gender split for Haroun?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Haroun appears almost entirely male. Of the 407 people counted with this name, 99.3% were male and only a very small share were female. The Census view is a snapshot of people living with the name in 2020, while the SSA section above tracks births across time.
What does the Census say about the background of people named Haroun?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Haroun is White at 40.0%. The next largest groups are Black (34.8%) and Asian/Pacific Islander (14.9%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself. The percentages in the chart above come from self-reported race and Hispanic-origin responses in the 2020 Census.
Which group reports the name Haroun most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Haroun in the 2020 Census, accounting for 40.0% (161 people in the published table).
Why can the Census sex total and race total differ slightly?
The Census Bureau published separate 2020 tables for sex and for race/Hispanic origin, and the released figures can differ slightly because of privacy protection in the public files. That is why this page treats the gender section and the race/origin section as two related snapshots instead of forcing them into one identical total.
Does every first name have Census demographic data?
No. The public Census first-name release only includes names that met the Bureau's publication rules, so many rarer names in the SSA files have no Census demographic snapshot. When that happens, the SSA trend, gender history, and state sections still appear, but the 2020 Census demographic sections are omitted.
What does the SSA popularity chart show?
The chart tracks births, not the number of people alive with the name today. Each point shows how many babies were given the name Haroun in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Haroun a male name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Haroun in the SSA data are male. You can see the full per-sex comparison in the gender distribution section above, which includes the latest year rank, birth count, and peak year for each sex.
Is Haroun still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Haroun in 2024, and the page above shows its latest-year rank where available. A name can be well past its peak and still remain in steady use, especially if it built up a large population over earlier decades.
Why can a name have a lot of living bearers even if it is not trendy now?
Because living-bearer counts and current baby-name popularity measure different things. A name like Haroun can build up a very large population over many decades, even if fewer parents are choosing it now than they did at its peak.
Where does this data come from?
First-name figures come from the Social Security Administration's national baby name files, which cover every name on a birth certificate from 1880 to 2024. Living-bearer estimates layer in CDC actuarial life tables broken out by sex to account for mortality. The population baseline (342,754,338) is the Census Bureau's latest national estimate. You can read the full calculation on our methodology page.
How many people are named Haroun?
Want to know how many Americans are named Haroun? HowManyOfMe.org, our sister site, puts the living-bearer count front and centre.