Harker
Most likely a place-based surname, probably from a lost or altered place-name or a northern English locality name.
The #6,230 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 56,289 Americans shares it.
Etymology
The surname Harker is usually treated as a locational name, though the exact place behind it is uncertain. One older source proposed a corruption of Harcourt, while later writers preferred a northern-English place-name explanation. Another line of explanation connects it with Old English personal-name or place-name material such as elements meaning "strong" and "spear," but this remains less certain than the locational reading.
History
The name is found in northern England, especially in sources associated with Durham and Cumberland, which fits a regional surname formed from local place reference. Nineteenth-century etymologists disagreed about its origin, showing that the name was already obscure by then. It appears in English records by the early modern period and has remained a relatively uncommon surname.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
One of the earliest dictionary writers on surnames explicitly said he did not find the place-name behind Harker, which is a good example of how often surname origins stayed mysterious even to Victorian scholars.
From the historical record
“Durham. Courthope's Debrett. HARKER. A corruption of Harcovirt. riARLAND. I do not find any place so called. Her] and occurs as one of the cha- racters in the well-known romance of " Horn," as a personal name. See Wright's Essays, i. 104. PIARLE Y. A parish In Shropshire, which, according to the genealogists of the…”
— Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom