The village of Hay Green is near the town of Thorne in the former West Riding of Yorkshire, and it from here that the surname is believe to have originated. The name means "a green or enclosure, within a wood" from the Olde English pre 7th century "haes-gren". However it has to be said there are no early recordings of the surname in the Yorkshire region, and therefore there is a possibility that the name does originate either from some now "lost" medieval village somewhere else, or as a variant form of some other name. The name in its various spellings of Hogren, Hagren, Hagreen and Haygreen, appears to be most popularly recorded in the 18th century church registers of the London area. The first such recording is that of William Hogren, whose daughter Mary, was christened at St Andrews church, Enfield, Middlesex, on September 4th 1709. Later in the century the name "changes" to Hagren, Edgar Hagren marrying Elizabeth Farrow at St Georges Chapel, Hanover Square, Westminster, on December 4th 1793, with a further apparent change to Haygreen in 1814, when Henry Haygreen was a witness at the famous church of St Dunstans in the East, Stepney, on May 14th of that year. This was during the reign of King George 111, known as "Farmer george", 1760 - 1820.

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