harold taylor

(male) 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.

English and Scottish: occupational name for a tailor, from Old French tailleur (Late Latin taliator, from taliare ‘to cut’). The surname is extremely common in Britain and Ireland, and its numbers have been swelled by its adoption as an Americanized form of the numerous equivalent European names, most of which are also very common among Ashkenazic Jews, for example Schneider, Szabó, and Portnov.