I am doing some genealogical research on someone with the surname “Howard”. I have reason to believe that this particular family came from German-speaking Central or Eastern Europe (and were possibly Jewish), and “Howard” is the anglicized form.
Now if Edward translates to Edvard, Edouard, Eduardo, etc. could Howard be rendered as “Hovard” or something? I cannot think of any foreign variants of this name, and therefore I am stuck. And I have tried other sources.
Thanks.
I knew of a hungarian called Hovarth. Howard as a given name is taken from Howard, Howarth, Hayward etc as surnames, which may have meant Hay man, or even pig-man. IIRC, that is, one of my given names is Howard.
This page:
http://www.behindthename.com/h.html
suggest:
'HOWARD (m) The meaning of this name is unknown, but there are several theories: “heart brave”, “high warden”, or “ewe herder” (Germanic). This was originally the surname of a noble family of England. Many other possibilities are suggested elsewhere- guardian of an enclosure, head man etc.etc…
Conclusion- we don’t know the origin. If we are looking elsewhere for Howard equivalents, we would need a culture with a naming system that allowed surnames to become given names; I am not sure how many other cultures allow this. I would assume that many Cathlolic countries would be excluded as only saints names were chosen and I’m pretty certain that there was no Saint Howard.
In my haste I misread your question and thought that it was a given name in which you were interested.
Try looking at the Church of the Latter Day Saints material and see what other surnames are listed as homophones to Howard- I am sure that there will be germanic homophones.
It is worth bearing in mind that if you are in the USA, although the stories about name changes at Ellis Island are myths, people often did later anglicise their names for ease of use. This explains why Johnson is a much more popular name in the US than in Britain- John’s son being a common name in many languages.