From Old French 'hardin' meaning hardy or brave one; also an English place surname.
Hardin is an English and Irish surname that made its way into use as a given name, following the long American tradition of honoring family names by placing them at the front. The surname itself derives from the Old English personal name Hearding — a patronymic formed from "heard," meaning brave or hardy — or alternatively from a topographic origin referring to someone who lived near a hare's den or wooded valley. In either case, it carries connotations of toughness and rootedness in the land.
As a surname, Hardin has notable historical footprints in American history. John Wesley Hardin was a notorious Texas outlaw of the post-Civil War era, one of the most feared gunfighters of the Old West, whose violent life and eventual death in El Paso in 1895 cemented his legend in frontier mythology. The name also appears in the political record through Martin D.
Hardin, a Kentucky senator, and various county and town names across the American South and Midwest that preserve the family name as a geographic marker. As a given name, Hardin was relatively quiet for much of the twentieth century but found a dramatic new audience following the success of Anna Todd's After series, the enormously popular young adult novels (and subsequent films) featuring a brooding, complicated protagonist named Hardin Scott. That cultural moment pushed the name into broader awareness among a younger generation, transforming it from a dusty surname into something that felt edgy and romantic. Today Hardin occupies an interesting position — historically grounded, Western in flavor, yet freshly energized by contemporary fiction.