Where the Hart name comes from

Hart is carried as an English, German, Dutch, French and Irish surname, and it grew from several unrelated roots. In England it began as a nickname from the Middle English hert, meaning a stag. The same word for a stag gave the surname in northern and Low German. Elsewhere in Germany, Hart is a variant of the surname Hardt.

In Yiddish and Dutch the name draws on old words for heart, hard and stag, and those senses may have merged into one. Some families took Hart as a translation of a heart name from another language, such as the French Francoeur or Jolicoeur. The Irish Hart has a separate origin: it anglicises Ó hAirt, meaning descendant of Art. That personal name comes from the Old Irish art, a bear, and was also understood as a champion.