Hardin

Hardin is a surname used as a given name, with English and French family histories. In English it can be a form of Harding; a French route connects it with Hardouin or other older personal names containing a Germanic element meaning hard or strong. Its root therefore connects with old personal names that emphasized strength, preserved through later family surnames.

The surname is familiar in American history through the nineteenth-century outlaw John Wesley Hardin. A family’s own records may identify which branch of the surname matters to its choice. Used as a first name, Hardin preserves that inherited family form, with Harding providing a related English surname form and Hardouin showing the distinct French branch of its history.