Harper

119,191 people in the United States were counted with the surname Harper in the 2020 census, making it the 255th most common in the country. That is about one person in 2,508.

By the numbers

People: 119,191
Rank: 255th
How common: 1 in 2,508
Per 100,000: 39.9

Where the name comes from

Origin an occupational name

Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Who bears the name

How people with the surname Harper described their own race and Hispanic origin at the 2020 census:

White, not Hispanic 65.3%
Black, not Hispanic 25.5%
Two or more races, not Hispanic 4.6%
Hispanic or Latino 3.4%
Asian or Pacific Islander, not Hispanic 0.6%
American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic 0.6%

Notable people called Harper

Stephen Harper (born 1959)22nd prime minister of Canada from 2006 to 2015
Valerie Harper (1939–2019)American actress
Ben Harper (born 1969)American singer-songwriter and musician
Steve Harper (born 1975)English association football player
Ron Harper (born 1964)American basketball player
Frances Ellen Watkins Harper (1825–1911)American writer
Hill Harper (born 1966)American actor and political candidate
Hannah Harper (born 1982)English pornographic actress and director

People named Harper with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).

Surnames like Harper

Also a first name

Harper has been given to 145,832 American babies as a first name since 1881, peaking in 2016. See it as a given name.

Try it on yourself

Source: US Census Bureau, Frequently Occurring Surnames, 2020. The Census describes the file as the surnames borne by 100 or more people; rarer names are not published. The line is not quite exact, and 617 published names come in under it, the smallest at 92 people. Race and Hispanic origin are self-reported. Rates are worked out against the 298.9 million people the file's own figures are calculated on, which is fewer than the census counted in all: the difference is everyone whose surname was too rare to publish.