H is for Harriet. Rather than focus on one ancestor for this post, I am focusing on a name and the popularity of it. In my family tree, there are no less than 16 individuals who bear the name of Harriet or Harriett. So, I decided to do a bit of research about the name Harriet and its meaning.

According to Wikipedia, Harriet is the English version of the French name Henriette which in turn is the female version of Henri. Henri itself is a derivative of Henrik which in turn is derived from Heimreiric which is a Germanic name. This original name gives us the meaning for it’s derivatives, including Harriet. Heim means “home” and ric meaning “ruler”. Indeed, modern baby name sites define Harriet (along with it’s derivatives) as ruler of the house. I find this definition somewhat amusing as traditionally men have been thought of as the head of the household. Imagine the reaction of some men if they knew this!!

But as all us family historians know, people have a bit of a habit of using nicknames at different stages and it can be tricky to figure out where some nicknames come from. So what are some variations of Harriet? They include: Harriott; Henriette; Henrietta; Harrietta; Hattie; Hettie; Hennie; Harry/Harri(e); Etta and Ettie. Now these variations all seem to make sense to me, but when you look a bit further there are some stranger variations out there. Some of the more different variations I found include Yettie or Yetta (English); Hatsy (English); Hani (Australian); and Halle (English).