Family name origins & meanings
- English : occupational name for a hardener of metals or a baker, from an agent derivative of Middle English harde(n); this verb is known to have been used with reference to metals and to heating dough.
- North German, Frisian, and Danish : from a personal name, Harder, Herder.
- South German : topographic name or habitational name from any of the places named with Middle High German hart ‘woodland used as pasture’.