Harrison
Son of Harry or son of Henry, an English masculine name.
Name Census estimates that about 83,541 living Americans carry the first name Harrison. It sits at #121 in the overall ranking, outside the top 50 but still well-represented. The name is used almost exclusively for boys. The average person named Harrison today is around 20 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Harrison births was 2016 (3,670 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Harrison. 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 Harrison with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Although Harrison is used almost entirely for boys, the SSA data does show 316 girls registered with the name since 1880.
People living today
84K
~ 1 in 4,103 Americans
Peak year
2016
3,670 babies that year
Average age
20
years old
2024 SSA rank
#121
Tracked since 1880
Census
Harrison in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 67,130 people with the first name Harrison, which placed it at #751 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
#751
National first-name rank
People counted
67K
67,130 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
22.2
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
78.4% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Harrison
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Harrison is White at 78.4%. The next largest groups are Black (6.0%) and Hispanic (5.5%). 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 Harrison 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 Harrison at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White78.4% · 52,604
- Black or African American6.0% · 4,044
- Hispanic or Latino5.5% · 3,694
- Two or more races5.3% · 3,582
- Asian and Pacific Islander3.8% · 2,582
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.9% · 624
Gender
Gender distribution for Harrison
Out of the 96,366 babies given the name Harrison since 1880, 99.7% were registered as male. The name sits firmly on the male side of the spectrum, with only a handful of female registrations across the entire dataset.
Harrison as a male name
- Ranked #121 in 2024
- 2,958 male births in 2024
- Peak: 2016 (3,662 births)
Harrison as a female name
- Ranked #9,128 in 2024
- 11 female births in 2024
- Peak: 2012 (15 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Harrison appears almost entirely male. Of the 67,132 people counted with this name, 99.5% were male and only a very small share were female.
Popularity
Harrison: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Harrison from the 1880s through to the 2020s, spanning 15 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2010s, with 28,666 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 2010s peak, Harrison remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Harrison 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 Harrison during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Harrisons live
The SSA's state-level files cover 51 states and territories. California, Texas, New York recorded the most babies named Harrison, while Wyoming, Alaska, Vermont recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 1,749 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Harrison
The name Harrison originated in the Middle Ages as an English surname derived from the medieval masculine name Harry, a pet form of Henry, combined with the common surname suffix "-son" meaning "son of". The name essentially meant "son of Harry" or "son of Henry".
The name Harry itself comes from the Germanic name Hariric, which was composed of the elements hari meaning "army" and ric meaning "ruler" or "power". The Normans introduced this name to England after the Norman Conquest in 1066, and it became a popular given name in medieval England, often used as a diminutive of Henry.
One of the earliest recorded examples of the name Harrison dates back to the 13th century in England. It was initially used as a surname to identify the son of someone named Harry or Henry, but over time, it transitioned into being used as a given name in its own right.
Some notable historical figures with the name Harrison include:
1. Harrison Ainsworth (1805-1882), an English historical novelist known for works like "The Tower of London" and "Old St. Paul's".
2. Harrison Hagan Schmitt (1935-present), an American geologist, retired NASA astronaut, and the last person to walk on the Moon during the Apollo 17 mission in 1972.
3. Harrison Reed (c. 1617-1670), an English Puritan minister and one of the founders of the New Haven Colony in Connecticut, United States.
4. Harrison Birtwistle (1934-2022), an English composer known for his operatic and instrumental works, including the operas "The Minotaur" and "The Last Supper".
5. Harrison Ford (1942-present), the famous American actor best known for his iconic roles as Han Solo in the Star Wars films and Indiana Jones in the Indiana Jones film series.
While the name Harrison has its roots in medieval England, it has since spread and become a popular name in various English-speaking countries around the world, transcending its original use as a surname.
Notable bearers
Famous people named Harrison
People
Harrison + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Harrison 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
Harrison: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Harrison?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 83,541 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Harrison 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 4,103 US residents.
Is Harrison a common name?
We classify Harrison as "Uncommon". It ranks above 99.4% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 96,366 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Harrison most popular?
The single biggest year for Harrison was 2016, when 3,670 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Harrison is about 20 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Harrison in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 67,130 people with the name Harrison, or 22.23 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #751 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 Harrison 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 Harrison?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Harrison appears almost entirely male. Of the 67,132 people counted with this name, 99.5% 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 Harrison?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Harrison is White at 78.4%. The next largest groups are Black (6.0%) and Hispanic (5.5%). 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 Harrison most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Harrison in the 2020 Census, accounting for 78.4% (52,604 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 Harrison in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Harrison a male name?
Yes, 99.7% of people registered as Harrison 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 Harrison still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Harrison 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 Harrison 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 called Harrison?
HowManyOfMe.org, our sister site, answers that with the living-bearer count in one glance.