HAROLD ANDERSON

From an Old English personal name derived from here ‘army’ + weald ‘ruler’. In pre-Conquest England, this was reinforced by the related Old Norse name Haraldr, introduced by Scandinavian settlers. The name was not at all popular in England after the Conquest, probably because of its association with the unfortunate King Harold, killed at the Battle of Hastings in 1066. It was used in some parts of Nottinghamshire in the 16th and 17th centuries, and revived more generally, along with a number of other Old English names, in the 19th century, when it suddenly became extremely popular.

Scottish and northern English: very common patronymic from the personal name Ander(s), a northern Middle English form of Andrew. See also Andreas. The frequency of the surname in Scotland is attributable, at least in part, to the fact that St. Andrew is the patron saint of Scotland, so the personal name has long enjoyed great popularity there. Legend has it that the saint's relics were taken to Scotland in the 4th century by a certain St. Regulus. The surname was brought independently to North America by many different bearers and was particularly common among 18th-century Scotch-Irish settlers in PA and VA. In the United States, it has absorbed many cognate or likesounding names in other European languages, notably Swedish Andersson, Norwegian and Danish Andersen, but also Ukrainian Andreychyn, Hungarian Andrásfi, etc.