Hodgson

Hodgson is a surname. In Britain, the Hodgson surname was the 173rd most common (766 per million) in 1881 and the 206th most common (650 per million) in 1998. In the United States of America, Hodgson was the 3753rd most popular surname (30 per million) in the 1990 census.

The surname authority P. H. Reaney (1958, p. 166) states that Hodgson is derived from "son of Hodge" and that Hodge, in turn, is a "pet-form of Roger". This view has been repeated by several others, and Reaney (1967) himself.

Roger is a Norman French name. In which case one would expect it to be more common in the South of England, which was first and more heavily settled by the Normans. An alternative explanation that Hodgson is of Anglo-Saxon origin would suggest that Hodgson would be more common in Anglo-Saxon areas, particularly in the South of England or east of the Pennines.

By contrast the Hodgsons are most numerous in Yorkshire in England, which was settled by the Norse Vikings in the tenth century. Hodgson could thus be derived from the Norse name Oddgeir, as suggested by earlier surname authorities. Alternatively, it could derive from the less frequent Norse name Hrodgeir (from which, as it happens, the name Roger has evolved).

One of the earliest Victorian surname studies is by Mark Lower (1842, p. 96) who suggests that Hodgson may come from "son of Roger" but immediately adds "if not from Odo."

In a more extensive discussion of the surname, Robert Ferguson (1858) entertains a number of possibilities concerning its origin. One is to connect it to the Scandinavian first name Odda. Ferguson notes (1858, p. 225) that this name, although frequently appearing before the Norman Conquest, does not appear to be a word in the Anglo-Saxon language. He writes: "Might it not be from Old Norse oddr, a dart or arrow, whence Oddr and Oddi, common Scandinavian names?"

In two editions of his major work on British surnames, Henry Barber (1894, p. 143; 1903, p. 207) presents more than one possible explanation, and notes in particular that Hodgson may derive from the Old Norse Oddgeir-son.

Charles Bardsley (1901, p. 390) takes a similar line, offering multiple explanations including "son of Roger" but also giving due prominence to the possibility of Old Norse origins. For him, the derivation of the Hodgson surname could be from "'the son of Odo' from the nickname Oddy, sometimes Hoddy, whence Odson or Hodson. There can be no doubt that Odo is the parent of many of our Hodsons. In Yorkshire it was for two centuries one of the most popular font-names for boys."

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