Hickford

Recorded as Hickford and very rarely as Higford, this is an English surname. It is locational from Higford in the county of Shropshire, which according to the famous Victorian etymologist Canion Charles Bardsley, writing in the year 1880 was a 'lost' medieval village. It must have made a remakable recovery in that case as it is stll recorded in the gazetters a century or more later, although its population is very small. The plqce name and hence the surname means either the High Ford, which assumes that there was a lower ford, or Hugga's ford, with Hugga being an eearly English personal name. 'Hug' was also a variant of the French name Hugh, and as the place name appears in the Domesday Book of 1086 as 'Huchefor', it may be either Olde English or Norman-French. Later in 1206 the place name is given as Hugeford, the change to Higford being in the 16th century. The surname is first recorded in the Hundred Rolls of landowners in the county of Oxford in 1273, when Edih de Hicford is so recorded. This recording is an example of land being held by a woman. It is often claimed that women had no rights, but this is simply not true. Furthermore a son often took his mothers name, which may have happened to descendants of this woman.