Family name origins & meanings
- English : of uncertain derivation. The 18th-century parish registers of Marske, North Yorkshire, record the surname Hartburn with the variant Harburn; Harben may be a further variant of this. If so, its origin is probably topographic or habitational, from East Hartburn in Stockton-on-Tees or Hartburn in Northumberland, both named from Old English heorot ‘hart’ + burna ‘steam’. However, this conjecture is not borne out by the distribution of the surname a century later, when it occurs chiefly in Cambridgeshire and London and also with a significant presence in the Channel Islands, perhaps suggesting that it could be a variant of Harpin.