The Hearn family is a family of Anglo-Norman origin. The name's original spelling in the 11th century was Heron or Heroun. As early as the 17th century, the spellings Hearn, Hearne, and Harn would also appear in England and the United States. The Hearn family has sometimes been incorrectly linked with the Irish ancestral name Hearn.
Origin
The surname Hearn is thought to be derived from Hairun, a settlement near Rouen, Normandy. The name can be traced back to the English settlement after the Norman Conquest. The Clan Heron, a border-raiding clan along the Anglo-Scottish border, would settle at Chipchase Castle in the 17th century.
History
In England
After the name's establishment in England from its Norman origin of Hairun in the eleventh century, numerous variations in the name's spelling would develop, including Heiron, Heron, and Herne. Alternate uses of the word occur in Old English as hyrne, meaning a nook or a corner of land or in a bend. In a glossary originating from Newcastle upon Tyne in 1825, both Hearn and Harn were used interchangeably to refer to a "coarse linen cloth" among the citizens of Newcastle. The variant spelling Heron has incorrectly led the name to be confused with the Irish name O'Heron, an Anglicized form of the Gaelic Ó hUidhrín. The names, however, are of different origin.
The Hearn family's arrival in the United States was a result of William Hearne, born in 1627 in London, son of baron Jordan Heron. Hearne was a Captain in Oliver Cromwell's army, and would later maintain a successful business enterprise in London selling Muscovado sugar from the West Indies between 1680 and 1688. Around 1688, William immigrated to America with his wife, Mary, settling on the border of contemporary Maryland and Delaware in Somerset County, United States, where he died in 1691. After his death, the Hearne estate in Maryland, nicknamed "St. Kitts" after Saint Kitts and Nevis, was occupied by his descendants for nearly two-hundred years. Variations and alternate spellings of the family name would occur onward from the seventeenth and eighteenth-centuries in both England and the United States, including Hearne and Harn.
Armigerous Hearns
The coat of arms granted to Daniel James Hearn, of Correa, co. Westmeath, the use of which being restricted to his descendants, are canting arms, bearing three heron, which have been closely associated with the name. Sir Nicholas Hearn, who was knighted in Drogheda, Ireland by Sir Henry Sidney in 1566, used as his motto the phrase 'Leges, juraque servat'- 'He maintains the laws and his rights.'
