Hitchner Family History

English (West Midlands): possibly an occupational name from an altered form of Middle English hicheler ‘a flax or hemp dresser’, an agent derivative of Middle English hechelen, hichelen) ‘to split and straighten out flax or hemp fibers with a hatchel’. Substitution of n for l is found in other English surnames (such as Cinnamon) and in this case may have been encouraged by familiarity with the river name Itchen in Warwickshire, the county where the surname is earliest recorded.

Alternatively, a habitational name from the Sussex placename Itchenor is formally possible, but no evidence for a derived surname has been found in Sussex or neighboring counties. Hitchner is probably a monogenetic surname recorded as Ichener (1437) in Packwood (Warwickshire)

, Hychener (1500) in Stratford upon Avon (Warwickshire), Hitchener (1635) in London, and Hichiner (1665) in Colwich (Staffordshire).