Hotston Family History

Perhaps from a lost place in Harting (Sussex) which is recorded as Hoddeston in 1350 and derives from an Old English personal name *Hod (genitive *Hoddes) + Old English tūn ‘farmstead estate’. It may survive in the name Hudsons Copse in that parish in which case it could be a source of the surnames Hotson, Hodson, Hudson, and Hutson in Sussex.

Compare John Hudson 1565 in IGI (Newhaven Sussex). Alternatively, a variant of either Hudson, Hodson, Hotson, or Hutson with -son replaced by -ston. Any of these names may have migrated from northern counties to Sussex in the post-medieval period.