Origin of the Name Harrison
The ancient history of the name
Harrison was found in the allfamilycrests.com archives. Harrison is a baptismal name meaning 'son of Harry'. Variants include Harris, Harries, Harisson and Harrison. This name is of Anglo-Saxon descent spreading to the Celtic countries of Ireland , Scotland and Wales in early times and is found in many mediaeval manuscripts throughout these countries. Examples of such are a Reginald Herryerson who was recorded in the ancient book 'The History of Norfolk' in the fourteenth century. A Laurence Harryson who was a native of Scotland had letters of denization in England in the year 1497.
In Ireland this name and its variants were introduced into Ulster Province by settlers who arrived from England and Scotland , especially during the seventeenth century. It was the 'Plantations of Ireland ' in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries that marked the end of Gaelic supremacy in Ireland . While the influx of settlers in the wake of the earlier Anglo-Norman invasion of the twelfth century resulted in a full integration into Irish society of the new arrivals, the same never occurred with the Ulster Planters who maintained their own distinct identity.
Harrison is also sometimes used as a variant of the names Harrihy, Henry, Herrity and Horohoe.
The Harrison coat of arms came into existence centuries ago. The process of creating coats of arms (also often called family crests) began in the eleventh century although a form of Proto-Heraldry may have existed in some countries prior to this. The new art of Heraldry made it possible for families and even individual family members to have their very own coat of arms, including all Harrison descendants.