Hickson Genealogy
The origin of the surname Hickson could be:
- Patronymic, Matronymic
- son of Richard, abbreviation
Hick, so Hick's son - obviously
there would have been several people called Richard when surname
names started to become used, so, if this is the source, not all
Hicksons would be related. However
in the 1990 telephone books there were only 1001 entries for this
name. Some of them were for the Chemical Company until recently known as Hickson
International plc. So the name is not common.
Feedback: Since Hick is a known diminutive form of Richard, the idea that the name originated
as the son of Richard is the most likely to be correct.
All the books on family name etymology seem to agree.
If it is uncommon, then it is probably so because other variations of the name like
Richards, Richardson, Rix, Rixon, Hicks, Higgs, Higson, Higgins, Dickens, Dix, Dixon, Dicks, Dickson, and Dickinson were more popular.
And there are certainly plenty of those.
- Hick-sen being Scandinavian (Viking) language for Son of Hick,
is a pet name for Richard.
- son of Isaac, so Isaac's son, or
Ic's son. - This seems less likely.
- From and English Place Name or from the name of an Estate
- There is a village in Staffordshire called Hixon. It is thought that the origin of this name was
Hustedon which seems to be taken from
the Old English, Hyht's Dunn, meaning hill. The spelling of the name
changes as the generations pass. The oldest known ancestor of this
line was William de Hustedon (William of Hustedon) born in England
about 1040 and died there in 1105. He is recorded in the Domesday
book in 1086 as living there, in Staffordshire.
- There is another thought that the surname Hixon, Hixson,
Hickson may have derived from the small community of Hinxton, which
is in the Cambridgeshire area, near Sawston, south of Cambridge. The
Irish Hicksons originated from the Cambridgeshire area.
- Occupational or describing a Personal Characteristic (Nickname)
- The name could originate from the old English word 'Hick'
meaning countryman, or, in Cornish, country bumpkin!, so Hickson, son of a countryman.
- Sigifying Patronage (Hick's man)
- From a geographical feature of the landscape
- "Just to add even more mist to the ancestry of Hick", writes Richard Hick,
"I have seen it attributed to the Saxon 'Rickhart' (coll fierce leader).
Certainly in Victorian times the surname Hick was pretty much confined to Yorkshire
- variations like Hicks are more associated with the Channel Islands and south west."
From English Surnames
by Charles Wareing Bardsley we find:
From him [Isaac] then have arisen our 'Isaacs' and 'Isaac-sons,' our 'Hicks' and 'Hicksons,' our 'Higgs' and Higsons,'
and with the Norman-French diminutives appended, our 'Higgins,' 'Higginsons,' 'Higgotts,' and Higgetts.'
and from the Dictionary of British Surnames
by P.H.Reaney, LittD, PhD, F.S.A.:
Hickson, Hickeson, Hixson: Stephen Hykson 1391 PTY; John Hixon 1450 Rad (C).
'Son of Hick.
