Havard
An old surname that likely began as a Norse personal name and later overlapped with English forms like Hayward and Howard.
The #9,314 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 88,339 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Most of the evidence points to Havard as a surname taken from an old personal name, especially the Norse Havardr or Haavard, which was common among the Northmen. Some writers also connect it with English forms such as Hayward or Howard, which complicates the history and shows how similar-sounding names could merge over time. A few older explanations tried to derive it from local or feudal terms, but these are less convincing overall.
History
The name is especially noted in older discussions of surnames in northern and eastern England, where Scandinavian settlement left many personal names in local use. Nineteenth-century writers disagreed about whether Havard was chiefly Norse, or a variant of Howard/Hereward, but the Norse explanation was often favored. The surname also appears in French and Breton surname lists, showing that similar forms developed or were recorded in more than one region.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
In older surname scholarship, Havard was sometimes discussed alongside Hayward because the forms could look deceptively alike in historical records.
From the historical record
“Rev. vol. OIL says, the family " may be Saxon, may be Danish." They are more probablj' of Norwegian origin. Havard or Haavard was a common personal name among the Northmen. " It appears," says Laing, "to be the English name Howard, and left by them in Northumberland and East Auglia." Heimskringla. vol. i. p. 410,”
— Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom