Hawthorne Family History

English: habitational name from Hawthorne (Hill) in Bray (Berkshire) an altered form of Hothorne earlier Horethorn (Old English hār + thorn ‘boundary thorn(-tree)’. A common variant of the surname in 17th-century Bray and neighboring Binfield was Hathorne.

English (Gloucestershire): topographic name for someone who lived by a hawthorn tree (Middle English hawthorn). English (Staffordshire): variant of Hordern, a habitational name from Hordern (in Rainow Cheshire), Horderns in Chapel en le Frith (Derbyshire), Hordron in Langsett (Yorkshire), Little Hordern in Bolton le Moors (Lancashire), and perhaps from Hardhorn in Poulton le Fylde (Lancashire). All the placenames derive from Old English hord-ærn ‘storehouse’.

By the early 17th century the surname had arrived in Staffordshire, where it was sometimes re-interpreted as Hawthorne. Scottish (Wigtownshire): habitational name from Hawthorn in Easington (Durham) which derives from Old English haguthorn ‘hawthorn (tree)’.

From Scotland it was taken to Ireland, where this form of the surname is now found primarily in northern Ireland (Down).