This interesting surname with variant spellings Huggin, Huggen, Huggan, Huggins, etc. is a diminutive from the Old French personal name Hu(gh)e, a short form of any of the various Germanic compound names with the first element "hug" meaning "heart, mind, spirit". The personal name recorded as Hugyn (1246), in "The Assize Court Rolls of lancashire", and Reginaldus filius Hugin (1246), "Liber Feodorum". The surname dates back to the early 14th Century, (see below). Further recordings include one John Hugyn (1337), witness, "The Feet of Fines, Staffordshire". London church recordings include one John Huggan who was christened at St. John's, Hackney, on August 18th 1573, and Elizabeth Hugan was christened at St. Martin in the Fields, Westminster, on April 20th 1578. Jone Huggan married Thomas Palmer on May 24th 1599, at St. Andrew by the Wardrobe. One C. Hugan, aged 25, a famine emigrant, sailed from Cork aboard the Morgiana bound for New York on June 15th 1847. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Robert Hugyn, which was dated 1327, in the Subsidy Rolls of Sussex, during the reign of King Edward 111, known as "The Father of the Navy", 1327 - 1377. 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.

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