This unusual and interesting name is French in origin, being introduced by the Normans after the conquest of 1066. It derives from the Old French "hurand", "Hurant", the verb from "hurer", meaning the bristle, ruffle or stand on end (of hair), and as a medieval nickname would describe someone with a shaggy, untidy head of hair. Creating surnames from nicknames was a popular medieval practice. In the modern idiom, the name is spelt Hurran or Hurren but these spellings do not appear until the 19th Century. The Suffolk Subsidy Rolls mention one Edmund Hurryng in 1524. One, Michael Hurren, emigrated to New York in 1846 from London, on the ship "Arabella". James Rix married Mary Hurren on the 1 May 1829, in Wimbledon Surrey. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of William Hurant. which was dated 1086, The Domesday Book, Suffolk. during the reign of King William I, The Conqueror, 1066 - 1087. 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.