Harper is an English occupational surname for a "harp player" and became a given name through the novelist Harper Lee, author of To Kill a Mockingbird. It barely existed as a first name in 2000, at number 1370, then rose faster than almost any other girls' name: the top 100 in 2011, the top 10 in 2015 and a peak at number nine. Harper ranks sixteenth in 2025.