Meaning & Origin
A neighborhood in northern Manhattan, New York County, New York City, New York State, United States, currently known for its black population and the culture thereof.
Harlem is a boy's and girl's baby name of Dutch origin, from the Dutch city name Haarlem, meaning "home on the wooded sandy ridge," from the Old Dutch haarleem. As a given name, Harlem refers primarily to the New York neighborhood that became the epicenter of African-American culture.
Harlem carries the full cultural weight of the Harlem Renaissance — the extraordinary flowering of African-American art, music, literature, and intellectual life in the 1920s that changed American culture forever. As a name, it is a tribute to that legacy and to Black cultural excellence.