Updated June 9, 2019

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Family name origins & meanings

  • Irish (Ulster) : Anglicized form of Gaelic Ó hÍr, meaning ‘long-lasting’. In Ireland this name is found in County Armagh; it has also long been established in Scotland.
  • Irish : Anglicized form of Ó hAichir ‘descendant of Aichear’, a personal name derived from the epithet aichear ‘fierce’, ‘sharp’. In Ireland this name is more commonly Anglicized as O’Hehir.
  • English : nickname for a swift runner (possibly a speedy messenger) or a timorous person, from Middle English hare ‘hare’. However, the surname Ayer and its variants was sometimes recorded as Hare.
  • English : topographic name from an Old English hær ‘rock’, ‘heap of stones’, ‘tumulus’.
  • French : according to Morlet, an occupational name for a huntsman, from a medieval French call used to urge on the hounds, or, in the form Haré, from the past participle of harer ‘to excite, stir up (hounds in pursuit of a quarry)’.