This distinguished and ancient surname is of Anglo-Saxon origin, and is a locational name from any one of a number of places called "Hayes". Hayes in Kent, recorded as "Hese" in the 1168 Pipe Rolls, and in Middlesex, recorded as "Hesa" in the Domesday Book of 1086, derive from the Olde English pre 7th Century "haes", brushwood or underwood. Hayes in Devonshire and Dorset is the plural of the Olde English "(ge)horg" an enclosure, or "hege" a hedge. Locational surnames were developed when former inhabitants of a place moved to another area, usually to seek work, and were best identified by the name of their birthplace. The surname is first recorded in the late 12th Century (see below), and can also be found as Heyes and Hease. Henry Heyse is noted in the Chartulary of Ramsey Abbey, Cambridgeshire (1240). Agnes Hayes married Willmus Smallrydge on October 18th 1543, in Devon. One Martin Hayes, together with his wife and child, is recorded as living in the Barbados in 1680; he was one of the earliest settlers in the New World. There are no less than nineteen Coats of Arms granted to this illustrious family. One granted to the Hayes family in Middlesex is blue, on a gold pale three black bulls heads couped. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Hugh de la Heise, which was dated 1197, in the "Eynsham Cartulary of Oxfordshire", during the reign of King Richard 1, known as "The Lionheart", 1189 - 1199. 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.

© Copyright: Name Origin Research 1980 - 2024