Frequency: (11654)
(number of times this surname appears in a sample database of 88.7 million names, representing one third of the 1997 US population)
1. English (mainly northern): habitational name from any of various places so called. Several, in particular those in Hampshire, Kent, and Devon, are named from Old English heorot ‘hart’, ‘stag’ + lēah ‘wood’, ‘clearing’. One in Northumberland has as the second element Old English hlāw ‘hill’, and one in Cumbria contains Old English clā ‘claw’, in the sense of a tongue of land between two streams, + probably heard ‘hard’. The surname is widely distributed, but most common in Yorkshire, where it arose from a place near Haworth, West Yorkshire, also named with Old English heorot + lēah. As a Scottish name, it comes from the Cumbrian Hartley (see forebears note).
2. Irish: shortened Anglicized form of or surname adopted as equivalent of Gaelic Ó hArtghaile ‘descendant of Artghal’, a personal name composed of the elements Art ‘bear’, ‘hero’ + gal ‘valor’.
FOREBEARS: In the 13th century, Michael de Hardcla fled from Westmorland or Cumberland to Scotland after the execution of his brother, the Earl of Carlisle, for treason.
See the Key to the Dictionary or consult the General Introduction for further explanation.
