Hopkin History, Family Crest & Coats of Arms

Origins Available:
England
Ireland

Hopkin is one of the oldest family names to come from the Anglo-Saxon tribes of Britain. It is derived from the name Hobb, a pet form of the personal name Robert. This name was supplemented by the common diminutive suffix -kin. Thus, the original form of the surname Hopkin was Hobbe-kin. 1

Early Origins of the Hopkin family

The surname Hopkin was first found in Oxfordshire at Swalcliffe where a family of this name has resided since the 13th century and had nineteen proprietors who had the personal name of John. 1

However, the earliest record of the name was found in the Latin form of Hobekinus in the Curia Regis Rolls of Staffordshire in 1224. William Hobkyn and Richard Hobkyn were both listed in the Subsidy Rolls of Worcestershire in 1327, while the Subsidy Rolls of Staffordshire of the same year list William Hopkyn and John Hopkynes. 2

The Hundredorum Rolls of 1273 list Nicholas Hobekyn and Roger Hobekyn in Cambridgeshire and later the Yorkshire Poll Tax Rolls of 1379 listed Agnes Hobkyn-wyf. 3

Early History of the Hopkin family

This web page shows only a small excerpt of our Hopkin research. Another 72 words (5 lines of text) covering the years 1544, 1563, 1570, 1581, 1594, 1600, 1612, 1620, 1623, 1624, 1626, 1627, 1644, 1647, 1657, 1660, 1664, 1666, 1670, 1674, 1681, 1682, 1690, 1700 and 1890 are included under the topic Early Hopkin History in all our PDF Extended History products and printed products wherever possible.

Hopkin Spelling Variations

Only recently has spelling become standardized in the English language. As the English language evolved in the Middle Ages, the spelling of names changed also. The name Hopkin has undergone many spelling variations, including Hopkins, Habbagan, Hopkin, Hopkines, Hopkyns and many more.

Early Notables of the Hopkin family

Notables of this surname at this time include:

John Hopkins (d. 1570), part-translator, with Thomas Sternhold and others, of the famous metrical version of the Psalms, was admitted B.A. at Oxford in 1544. 4
Richard Hopkins (d. 1594?), was a Catholic exile, born of 'genteel parents,' and at about seventeen years of age became a commoner of St. Alban's Hall, Oxford, where he was residing in 1563. 4
Edward Hopkins (1600-1657), was an English colonist, politician, and Governor of the Connecticut Colony, founder of the New Haven and Connecticut colonies, politically active in the administration of...
William Hopkins, was a British sheriff who held the joint position of Sheriff of Nottingham, England from 1623 to 1624
Stephen Hopkins (c. 1581-1644), was a tanner and merchant who was one of the passengers on the Mayflower in 1620 and signer of the Mayflower Compact. His daughter Oceanus Hopkins (1620- c.1627) was th...
Sir Richard Hopkins (c. 1612-1682), was an English politician, Member of Parliament for Coventry in 1660
Matthew Hopkins (d. 1647), was a witchfinder, son of James Hopkins, 'minister of Wenham,' Suffolk, was a native of that county. "He is said to have been a lawyer, first at Ipswich, afterwards at Manni...

Migration of the Hopkin family to Ireland

Some of the Hopkin family moved to Ireland, but this topic is not covered in this excerpt.
Another 182 words (13 lines of text) about their life in Ireland is included in all our PDF Extended History products and printed products wherever possible.

Hopkin migration to the United States +

To escape the unstable social climate in England of this time, many families boarded ships for the New World with the hope of finding land, opportunity, and greater religious and political freedom. Although the voyages were expensive, crowded, and difficult, those families that arrived often found greater opportunities and freedoms than they could have experienced at home. Many of those families went on to make significant contributions to the rapidly developing colonies in which they settled. Early North American records indicate many people bearing the name Hopkin were among those contributors:

Hopkin Settlers in United States in the 17th Century

William Hopkin, who landed in Virginia in 1641 5
William Hopkin, who arrived in Virginia in 1649 5

Hopkin migration to West Indies +

The British first settled the British West Indies around 1604. They made many attempts but failed in some to establish settlements on the Islands including Saint Lucia and Grenada. By 1627 they had managed to establish settlements on St. Kitts (St. Christopher) and Barbados, but by 1641 the Spanish had moved in and destroyed some of these including those at Providence Island. The British continued to expand the settlements including setting the First Federation in the British West Indies by 1674; some of the islands include Barbados, Bermuda, Cayman Island, Turks and Caicos, Jamaica and Belize then known as British Honduras. By the 1960's many of the islands became independent after the West Indies Federation which existed from 1958 to 1962 failed due to internal political conflicts. After this a number of Eastern Caribbean islands formed a free association. 6

Hopkin Settlers in West Indies in the 17th Century

Michael Hopkin, who settled in Barbados in 1654

Contemporary Notables of the name Hopkin (post 1700) +

Lenore Frances Hopkin (1896-1979), American Democratic Party politician, Delegate to Democratic National Convention from Utah, 1940 7
Humphrey Hopkin (1774-1840), English professional cricketer
Frederick "Fred" Hopkin (1895-1970), English footballer
Sir Deian Rhys Hopkin (b. 1944), President of the National Library of Wales
Mr. John Hopkin, British sheriff, held the position of Sheriff of Nottingham, England from 1926 to 1927
Lewis Hopkin (1708-1771), Welsh poet, born in 1708 at Hendre-Ifan-Goch, in the parish of Llandyfodwg in Glamorganshire, said to have been a relative of ‘Dafydd Hopkin o'r Coetty,’ who was presiding bard of the chair of Glamorgan in 1730
William "Bill" Henry Hopkin (1914-2002), Welsh rugby union and professional rugby league footballer
Sir William Aylsham Bryan Hopkin (1914-2009), Welsh economist
Major Daniel Hopkin MC (1886-1951), British soldier, barrister and Labour Party politician
Mary Hopkin (1950-1968), sometimes known as Mary Visconti, a Welsh folk singer best known for her 1968 UK number one single "Those Were The Days"
... (Another 1 notables are available in all our PDF Extended History products and printed products wherever possible.)

The Hopkin Motto +

The motto was originally a war cry or slogan. Mottoes first began to be shown with arms in the 14th and 15th centuries, but were not in general use until the 17th century. Thus the oldest coats of arms generally do not include a motto. Mottoes seldom form part of the grant of arms: Under most heraldic authorities, a motto is an optional component of the coat of arms, and can be added to or changed at will; many families have chosen not to display a motto.

Motto: Inter primos
Motto Translation: Among the first

Citations +

Lower, Mark Anthony, Patronymica Britannica, A Dictionary of Family Names of the United Kingdom. London: John Russel Smith, 1860. Print.
Reaney, P.H and R.M. Wilson, A Dictionary of English Surnames. London: Routledge, 1991. Print. (ISBN 0-415-05737-X)
Bardsley, C.W, A Dictionary of English and Welsh Surnames: With Special American Instances. Wiltshire: Heraldry Today, 1901. Print. (ISBN 0-900455-44-6)
Smith, George (ed), Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1885-1900. Print
Filby, P. William, Meyer, Mary K., Passenger and immigration lists index : a guide to published arrival records of about 500,000 passengers who came to the United States and Canada in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries. 1982-1985 Cumulated Supplements in Four Volumes Detroit, Mich. : Gale Research Co., 1985, Print (ISBN 0-8103-1795-8)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_West_Indies
The Political Graveyard: Alphabetical Name Index. (Retrieved 2015, October 14) . Retrieved from http://politicalgraveyard.com/alpha/index.html