Harshil
Joyful, happy, from Sanskrit words meaning "delight" and "ray of light".
Name Census estimates that about 247 living Americans carry the first name Harshil. The name is used almost exclusively for boys. The average person named Harshil today is around 18 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Harshil births was 2005 (18 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Harshil. 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 Harshil with official rankings and popularity over time.
People living today
247
~ 1 in 1,387,669 Americans
Peak year
2005
18 babies that year
Average age
18
years old
2022 SSA rank
#8,548
Tracked since 1992
Census
Harshil in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 613 people with the first name Harshil, which placed it at #17,806 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
#17,806
National first-name rank
People counted
613
613 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.2
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
Asian and Pacific Islander
95.8% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Harshil
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Harshil is Asian/Pacific Islander at 95.8%. The next largest groups are White (1.3%) and American Indian/Alaska Native (1.0%). 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 Harshil 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 Harshil at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- Asian and Pacific Islander95.8% · 587
- White1.3% · 8
- American Indian and Alaska Native1.0% · 6
- Black or African American0.8% · 5
- Hispanic or Latino0.7% · 4
- Two or more races0.5% · 3
Popularity
Harshil: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Harshil from the 1990s through to the 2020s, spanning 4 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2000s, with 130 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 2000s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Harshil 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 Harshil during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Harshils live
Origin
Meaning and history of Harshil
The name Harshil has its roots in the Sanskrit language, which originated in ancient India and is considered one of the oldest languages in the world, dating back to around the 2nd millennium BCE. The name is derived from the Sanskrit words "harsh," meaning joy or happiness, and "il," meaning lord or master.
In Hindu mythology, the name Harshil is closely associated with the god Vishnu, who is revered as the preserver of the universe and the embodiment of joy and bliss. Some ancient Hindu texts, such as the Puranas, mention the name Harshil as a devotee or a follower of Vishnu, though specific references are scarce.
The earliest recorded instances of the name Harshil can be traced back to the medieval period in India, particularly in regions where Sanskrit was widely used as a language of scholarship and literature. One of the earliest known individuals with the name Harshil was a Sanskrit scholar and poet who lived in the 9th century CE in the northwestern region of the Indian subcontinent.
Throughout history, there have been several notable individuals who bore the name Harshil. One such person was Harshil Mehta, an Indian cricket player who played domestic cricket in the 1980s and 1990s. Another notable Harshil was Harshil Karan, an Indian-American entrepreneur and co-founder of the tech startup FitTrack, which develops fitness tracking devices.
In the field of literature, Harshil Srivastav is a contemporary Indian author known for his novels and short stories. He was born in 1987 and has published several works exploring themes of identity, relationships, and the human condition.
Another noteworthy individual with the name Harshil was Harshil Patel, an Indian-American software engineer who worked at prominent companies like Google and Microsoft. He was born in 1981 and made significant contributions to various open-source projects.
While the name Harshil is primarily associated with the Indian subcontinent, it has gained popularity in other parts of the world due to migration and cultural exchange. However, its roots remain deeply intertwined with the Sanskrit language and ancient Hindu traditions, reflecting the rich cultural heritage of the Indian subcontinent.
People
Harshil + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Harshil 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
Harshil: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Harshil?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 247 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Harshil 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 1,387,669 US residents.
Is Harshil a common name?
We classify Harshil as "Very Rare". It ranks above 76.9% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 250 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Harshil most popular?
The single biggest year for Harshil was 2005, when 18 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Harshil is about 18 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Harshil in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 613 people with the name Harshil, or 0.20 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #17,806 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 Harshil 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 Harshil?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Harshil appears almost entirely male. Of the 607 people counted with this name, 100.0% 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 Harshil?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Harshil is Asian/Pacific Islander at 95.8%. The next largest groups are White (1.3%) and American Indian/Alaska Native (1.0%). 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 Harshil most often in the Census?
Asian/Pacific Islander is the largest reported group for people named Harshil in the 2020 Census, accounting for 95.8% (587 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 Harshil in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Harshil a male name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Harshil 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 Harshil still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Harshil 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 Harshil 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 Americans are named Harshil?
Want to know how many Americans are named Harshil? HowManyOfMe.org, our sister site, puts the living-bearer count front and centre.