Find out how popular the last name Hargraves is in the United States and learn more about the meaning, history, and race and ethnic origin of people in America who are named Hargraves.

Hargraves, like all of the last names we have data for, is identified by the U.S. Census Bureau as a surname which has more than 100 occurrences in the United States in the Decennial Census survey. The most recent statistics we have for the Hargraves surname is from the 2010 census data.

Popularity of Hargraves in America

Hargraves is the 9751st most popular name in America based on the data we have collected from the U.S. Census Bureau.

The Hargraves surname appeared 3,324 times in the 2010 census and if you were to sample 100,000 people in the United States, approximately 1 people would have the surname Hargraves.

We can also compare 2010 data for Hargraves to data from the previous census in 2000. The table below contains all of the statistics for both years in a side-by-side comparison.

The history of the last name Hargraves

The surname Hargraves originated in England and dates back to the 12th century. It is a locational surname derived from the Old English words "hara" meaning hare and "grav" meaning grove, referring to a small wooded area inhabited by hares. The name likely originated from a place called Hargraves or Hargrave.

One of the earliest known records of the name Hargraves appears in the Pipe Rolls of Yorkshire in 1166, where it is spelled as "de Haragrave." The Pipe Rolls were a series of administrative records maintained by the English Exchequer in the 12th and 13th centuries.

In the 13th century, the name Hargraves was also recorded in the Hundred Rolls of Buckinghamshire, where it was spelled "Hargrave." The Hundred Rolls were a series of administrative records compiled in 1274-1275 during the reign of King Edward I.

The Domesday Book, a comprehensive record of landholdings in England compiled in 1086 under the orders of William the Conqueror, does not mention the name Hargraves or any of its variations. This suggests that the name likely emerged after the Norman Conquest of England in 1066.

One of the earliest notable individuals with the surname Hargraves was Sir John Hargraves, a member of the English gentry who lived in the late 14th century. He was a landowner in the county of Lancashire.

Another prominent figure was Richard Hargraves, a 16th-century English merchant and member of the Worshipful Company of Clothworkers in London. He lived from approximately 1520 to 1588.

In the 17th century, Thomas Hargraves (1610-1673) was a renowned English mathematician and astronomer. He made significant contributions to the development of mathematical instruments and wrote several influential works on mathematics and astronomy.

During the 18th century, James Hargraves (1720-1778) was an English inventor and weaver who played a crucial role in the Industrial Revolution. He is credited with inventing the spinning jenny, a multi-spindle spinning frame that revolutionized the textile industry.

In the 19th century, Edward Hargraves (1816-1891) was an Australian explorer and goldminer. He is credited with being one of the first to discover significant gold deposits in New South Wales, Australia, which sparked the Australian gold rushes of the 1850s.

Race and ethnic origin of people with the last name Hargraves

We also have some data on the ancestry of people with the surname Hargraves.

The below race categories are the modified race categories used in the Census Bureau's population estimates program. All people were categorized into six mutually exclusive racial and Hispanic origin groups:

1. White only
2. Black only
3. American Indian and Alaskan Native only
4. Asian and Pacific Islander only
5. Hispanic
6. Two or More Races

For the most recent 2010 census data, the race/ethnic origin breakdown for Hargraves was:

Note: Any fields showing (S) means the data was suppressed for privacy so that the data does not in any way identify any specific individuals.

Since we have data from the previous census in 2000, we can also compare the values to see how the popularity of Hargraves has changed in the 10 years between the two census surveys.

Data source

The last name data and ethnic breakdown of last names is sourced directly from the Decennial Census survey, conducted every 10 years by the United States Census Bureau.

The history and meaning of the name Hargraves was researched and written by our team of onomatology and genealogy experts.

If you have a correction or suggestion to improve the history of Hargraves, please contact us.

Reference this page

We spend a lot of resources downloading, cleaning, merging, and formatting the data that is shown on the site.

If you found the data or information on this page useful in your research, please use the tool below to properly cite or reference Name Census as the source. We appreciate your support!