Born in Turku, Harry Larva was forced to change his last name from Lagerström to Larva in 1928 by a young president of Finnish Athletics Union and known nationalist, Urho Kaleva Kekkonen, because his name did not sound sufficiently Finnish.
In 1969 he became the first human together with president Urho Kekkonen and Professor Kaarina Kari to receive an honorary doctorate in Sport Sciences from the University of Jyväskylä.