English and Scottish: topographic name for someone who lived by a bush or hedge of hawthorn (Old English haguþorn, hægþorn, i.e. thorn used for making hedges and enclosures, Old English haga, (ge)hæg), or a habitational name from a place named with this word, such as Hawthorn in County Durham. In Scotland the surname originated in the Durham place name, and from Scotland it was taken to Ireland. This spelling is now found primarily in northern Ireland.
FOREBEARS The American novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–64) was a direct descendant of Major William Hathorne, one of the English Puritans who settled in MA in 1630, and whose son John Hathorne was one of the judges in the Salem witchcraft trials. The writer's father was a sea captain, as was his grandfather, the Revolutionary war hero Daniel Hathorne (1731–96). The spelling of the surname was altered by the novelist himself.
