Hutchinson
A patronymic surname meaning “son of Hugh,” built from a pet form of the medieval given name Hugh.
The #710 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 6,329 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Hutchinson is a surname of patronymic type, ultimately meaning “son of Hutchin,” with Hutchin being a diminutive form of Hugh. The root name Hugh goes back to a Germanic personal name meaning “mind” or “spirit,” though in surname use the key point is the shortened personal name rather than the deeper original sense. Older writers also noted a Gaelic explanation for some Irish forms, but the English patronymic derivation is the standard one for Hutchinson.
History
The name is well established in England and Ireland, and 19th-century surname writers noted that Hutchinson is the more common spelling in those areas. It belongs to a large family of surnames built from Hugh, alongside Hutchins, Hutchison, Huggins, and related forms. Some northern English bearers were thought to have had the name reinterpreted or even confused with Richardson, but the traditional explanation remains “son of Hugh.”
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Older surname books explicitly group Hutchinson with a whole cluster of Hugh-based names, showing how many spellings grew from the same medieval nickname family.
From the historical record
“diminutives of Hugh. HUTCHINSON. See Hutchison. In England and Ireland this is the more fre- quent orthography. In the N. of England the name appears (but erroneously) to be regarded as a corruption of Richardson. Folks of Shields, p. 37. HUTCHISON. Said to lie Gaelic with an English termination. The son of Hugh.…”
— Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom