Harvey

/ˈhɑɹ.vi/

The name Harvey comes from the Old Breton personal name Haerviu, a compound of haer (“battle”) and viu (“worthy, fit”), literally “battle-worthy.” Breton settlers carried the name into England at the Norman Conquest in 1066, where it was Latinized as

US Rank

No. 244

Births

1,441

Peak Year

1880

Herveus and eventually anglicized to Hervey and then Harvey.

Cognate Celtic elements appear in Welsh and Gaulish warrior names, and the root haer corresponds to the Old Irish cár.

What the name Harvey means

The name’s early veneration rests on Saint Hervé (c. 521-575), 1 of the most beloved saints in Brittany.

Born blind, he traveled with a wolf-companion after the wolf killed his donkey, and is invoked against eye diseases and for the protection of animals.

His feast day is June 17, and shrines devoted to him are spread across Finistère. A second figure, Hervey the Breton, accompanied William the Conqueror and received English lands in Norfolk.

Literary and scientific bearers include William Harvey (1578-1657), the English physician whose treatise De Motu Cordis (1628) established the circulation of the blood.

The James Stewart film Harvey (1950), based on Mary Chase’s 1944 Pulitzer-winning play, gave the name its mid-century playful warmth through the invisible 6-foot rabbit. Harvey Dent, the prosecutor-turned-villain Two-Face of DC Comics, debuted in 1942.

U.S. Social Security records place Harvey in the top 100 from 1880 through the 1930s, peaking at rank 52 in 1895.

The name faded through the mid-twentieth century, sliding out of the top 1000 by 1994, but has enjoyed a renaissance in the United Kingdom and Australia since the 2000s, re-entering the U.S. top 1000 in 2018.

Contemporary bearers include actor Harvey Keitel, mathematician Harvey Friedman, and the son of David and Victoria Beckham, Harvey, whose high public profile has helped revive the name in Britain where it ranks in the top 100.