Granger is an Old French occupational surname name meaning "farm steward" or "granary keeper," from the Old French grangier, one who manages a grange or farm estate. Ranked #1255 with a peak in 2021 and around 2,000 total SSA uses, it's a surname name with a specific and unlikely pop-culture driver that has established it on American birth certificates.
The Occupational Surname Tradition
Granger belongs to the rich English occupational surname tradition: names like Smith, Fletcher, Cooper, and Mason that identified people by their work. A granger managed a lord's granary or farm, which was a position of genuine importance in medieval agricultural society. As occupational surnames became inherited family names and then crossed into given-name use, they brought this specific working-life heritage with them. Old French occupational names in the surname tradition have a different feel from Anglo-Saxon ones: slightly more formal, more continental.
Hermione Granger and the Obvious Association
Any parent choosing Granger for a child in 2021 is making a Harry Potter reference, consciously or otherwise. Hermione Granger is one of the most beloved fictional characters of the past thirty years: brilliant, principled, loyal. The 2021 peak in Granger for boys reflects families who grew up with Harry Potter now having children and choosing names from that universe. The interesting move here is that it's the last name being used, not Hermione or Harry themselves.
A Name That Carries a Fictional Surname
The honest assessment: Granger is almost entirely a Hermione Granger reference in current American naming culture, with the occupational etymology as secondary context. That's neither good nor bad. It's a name from one of the most culturally significant fictional works of the past century, carried by a character of genuine positive qualities. Some fictional surname names age with the franchise; Granger's longevity will depend partly on how the Harry Potter universe maintains its cultural relevance in the coming decades.