Howard is an English-language given name originating from Old French Huard (or Houard) from a Germanic source similar to Old High German *Hugihard "heart-brave", or *Hoh-ward, literally "high defender; chief guardian".
It is also probably in some cases a confusion with the Old Norse cognate Haward (Hávarðr), which means "high guard", and as a surname also with the unrelated Hayward.
In some rare cases it is from the Old English eowu hierde "ewe herd".
[1][2] In Anglo-Norman the French digram -ou- was often rendered as -ow- such as tour → tower, flour (western variant form of fleur) → flower, etc.
A diminutive is "Howie" and its shortened form is "Ward" (most common in the 19th century).