Harlan is an English surname and given name from Old English, usually explained as "hare land" or "rocky land", and is a classic American name: the country has a Harlan County in Kentucky, a Supreme Court justice John Marshall Harlan and the writers Harlan Ellison and Harlan Coben. The name has climbed with the revival of vintage boys' names; it entered the top 1000 in 2013 and reached number 617 in 2025, its best rank in decades.