Hague

This unusual and interesting name has a number of possible origins. Firstly, it may derive from an Anglo-Saxon topographical name for someone who lived by or in a hedged or fenced enclosure, from the Olde English pre 7th Century term "haga". The name may also be locational in origin, from a place named with the Olde English "haga", or its Old Norse cognate form "Hagi", such as the three places called Haigh, two in West Yorkshire and the other near Manchester. These places are first recorded as "Hagh" (1198), "Hagh" (1379), and "Hage" (1194), respectively. In some few cases the modern surname Hague may be locational from "The Hague" in the Netherlands, in Dutch "Den Haag", which is named from the Old Dutch "haag", enclosure, cognate with the Olde English and Old Norse terms. One William de Haghe was listed in the Subsidy Rolls of Yorkshire in 1327, and the marriage of John Hague and Alice Marshall was recorded in Bradfield, Yorkshire, on February 7th 1589. A Coat of Arms granted to a Hague family of Micklegate, York, Yorkshire is per chevron gold and silver, two mullets blue, in chief and a red crescent, in base. The Crest is a griffin's head erased silver. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Jollan de Hagh, which was dated 1229, in the "Close Rolls of Yorkshire", during the reign of King Henry 111, known as "The Father of the Navy", 1216 - 1272. Surnames became necessary when governments introduced personal taxation. In England this was known as Poll Tax. Throughout the centuries, surnames in every country have continued to "develop" often leading to astonishing variants of the original spelling.