Hardy
A masculine English name meaning strong and durable.
Name Census estimates that about 2,665 living Americans carry the first name Hardy. The name is used almost exclusively for boys. The average person named Hardy today is around 50 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Hardy births was 1921 (151 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Hardy. 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 Hardy with official rankings and popularity over time.
People living today
2.7K
~ 1 in 128,613 Americans
Peak year
1921
151 babies that year
Average age
50
years old
2024 SSA rank
#2,566
Tracked since 1880
Census
Hardy in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 2,377 people with the first name Hardy, which placed it at #6,681 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
#6,681
National first-name rank
People counted
2.4K
2,377 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.8
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
53.9% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Hardy
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Hardy is White at 53.9%. The next largest groups are Black (29.5%) and Hispanic (6.5%). 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 Hardy 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 Hardy at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White53.9% · 1,281
- Black or African American29.5% · 701
- Hispanic or Latino6.5% · 155
- Asian and Pacific Islander5.9% · 141
- Two or more races2.9% · 68
- American Indian and Alaska Native1.3% · 31
Gender
Gender distribution for Hardy
Out of the 5,775 babies given the name Hardy 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.
Hardy as a male name
- Ranked #2,566 in 2024
- 52 male births in 2024
- Peak: 1921 (151 births)
Hardy as a female name
- Ranked #12,716 in 2022
- 7 female births in 2022
- Peak: 2022 (7 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Hardy leans strongly male. 2,303 people counted with this name were male (96.7%), compared with 79 female bearers (3.3%).
Popularity
Hardy: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Hardy from the 1880s through to the 2020s, spanning 15 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1920s, with 963 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1920s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Hardy 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 Hardy during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Hardys live
The SSA's state-level files cover 15 states and territories. Texas, Georgia, Louisiana recorded the most babies named Hardy, while Washington, Illinois, Virginia recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 152 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Hardy
The given name Hardy has its origins in the Germanic languages, where it is derived from the Old German word "hart," meaning "hardy" or "brave." The name likely emerged during the early medieval period when Germanic tribes inhabited various regions of Europe.
Hardy was a popular name among the Franks, a Germanic tribe that settled in what is now modern-day France and parts of Germany. It is believed that the name first gained prominence in the 6th century, as evidenced by references in Frankish chronicles and records from that period.
The name Hardy can also be traced back to Old English, where it was spelled as "Hardi" or "Haerdi." This version of the name was commonly used among the Anglo-Saxons, who inhabited parts of modern-day England and Scotland.
One of the earliest recorded instances of the name Hardy appears in the 8th century, when a Frankish nobleman named Hardy of Reims is mentioned in historical texts. He was a prominent figure in the court of Charlemagne, the Frankish king and later Holy Roman Emperor.
Throughout history, several notable individuals have borne the name Hardy. One of the most famous is Thomas Hardy, the English novelist and poet who lived from 1840 to 1928. His works, including "Tess of the d'Urbervilles" and "Far from the Madding Crowd," are regarded as classics of English literature.
Another prominent figure with the name Hardy was Sir Thomas Duffus Hardy, a British archivist and historian who lived from 1804 to 1878. He played a crucial role in preserving and organizing historical records in the British Public Record Office.
In the realm of science, Godfrey Harold Hardy, a renowned English mathematician born in 1877 and died in 1947, made significant contributions to number theory and mathematical analysis. He is remembered for his collaboration with the Indian mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan.
Additionally, the name Hardy has been associated with notable figures in the world of sports. One example is Hardy Kilgour, a Canadian ice hockey player who was born in 1914 and played for the Toronto Maple Leafs in the 1930s and 1940s.
Finally, the name Hardy has been carried by individuals in the entertainment industry, such as Hardy Krüger, a German actor born in 1928 who appeared in numerous films and television shows throughout his career.
Notable bearers
Famous people named Hardy
People
Hardy + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Hardy 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
Hardy: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Hardy?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 2,665 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Hardy 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 128,613 US residents.
Is Hardy a common name?
We classify Hardy as "Rare". It ranks above 94.8% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 5,775 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Hardy most popular?
The single biggest year for Hardy was 1921, when 151 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Hardy is about 50 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Hardy in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 2,377 people with the name Hardy, or 0.79 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #6,681 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 Hardy 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 Hardy?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Hardy leans strongly male. 2,303 people counted with this name were male (96.7%), compared with 79 female bearers (3.3%). 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 Hardy?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Hardy is White at 53.9%. The next largest groups are Black (29.5%) and Hispanic (6.5%). 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 Hardy most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Hardy in the 2020 Census, accounting for 53.9% (1,281 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 Hardy in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Hardy a male name?
Yes, 99.7% of people registered as Hardy 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 Hardy still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Hardy 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 Hardy 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 Hardy?
For a quick modern estimate, our sister site HowManyOfMe.org answers that in one glance, with the living-bearer count front and centre.