Hannett is a surname of

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

descent.

Etymology

According to the ''

Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the Un ...

'', the modern name ''Hannett'' originates in two different medieval names, which came to sound the same around the sixteenth century. It is a variant of the more common form ''

Hamnett ''Hamnett'', and its spelling variants ''Hamnet'' and '' Hannett'', is a personal name (now usually or only found as a surname). Etymology According to the ''Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland'', the modern name ''Hamnett'' o ...

''. The first is the personal name ''Hamunet'': its use as a second name originated to indicate that a person was a child of someone called Hamunet. The earliest attested forms of this name occur in

Old German Old High German (OHG; german: Althochdeutsch (Ahd.)) is the earliest stage of the German language, conventionally covering the period from around 750 to 1050. There is no standardised or supra-regional form of German at this period, and Old High ...

, as ''

Haimo Haimo, also spelled Hamo, Heimo, Hamon, Haim, Haym, Heym, Aymo, Aimo, etc., is a masculine given name of Germanic origin. The Old French forms are Haimon, Aymon, Aimon, Aymes. It is a hypocoristic form of various Germanic names beginning with the r ...

''. This Old German name was borrowed into

Old French Old French (, , ; Modern French: ) was the language spoken in most of the northern half of France from approximately the 8th to the 14th centuries. Rather than a unified language, Old French was a linkage of Romance dialects, mutually intelligib ...

, including into the

Anglo-Norman Anglo-Norman may refer to: *Anglo-Normans, the medieval ruling class in England following the Norman conquest of 1066 * Anglo-Norman language **Anglo-Norman literature * Anglo-Norman England, or Norman England, the period in English history from 10 ...

dialect spoken in England, as ''Haim'', ''Haimes'' (in the

nominative case In grammar, the nominative case (abbreviated ), subjective case, straight case or upright case is one of the grammatical cases of a noun or other part of speech, which generally marks the subject of a verb or (in Latin and formal variants of Engl ...

), and ''Haimon'' (in the

oblique case In grammar, an oblique (abbreviated ; from la, casus obliquus) or objective case (abbr. ) is a nominal case other than the nominative case, and sometimes, the vocative. A noun or pronoun in the oblique case can generally appear in any role exc ...

) — along with variant pronunciations and spellings, which became sources of English surnames like ''Hame'', ''

Haim The name ''Haim'' can be a first name or surname originating in the Hebrew language, or deriving from the Old German name '' Haimo''. Hebrew etymology Chayyim ( he, חַיִּים ', Classical Hebrew: , Israeli Hebrew: ), also transcribed ''Ha ...

'', ''Haime'', ''

Haimes Haimes is an English language surname. Etymology According to the ''Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland'', the modern name ''Haimes'' originates in two different medieval names, which came to sound the same around the sixtee ...

'', ''Hains'', '' Haines'', ''Hayns'', '' Haynes'', ''Hammon'' and '' Hammond''. The form ''Haimon'' was then combined with the Anglo-Norman

diminutive A diminutive is a root word that has been modified to convey a slighter degree of its root meaning, either to convey the smallness of the object or quality named, or to convey a sense of intimacy or endearment. A (abbreviated ) is a word-formati ...

suffix In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns, adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs. Suffixes can carry ...

''-et'', giving the pet-name ''Hamunet''. The second source of the surname ''Hamnett'' is the place-name ''Hampnett'', found in Gloucestershire and in the forms ''

Westhampnett Westhampnett (or West Hampnett) is a village and civil parish in the district of Chichester in West Sussex, England, located northeast of Chichester on the former A27 road, now by-passed. The village is pre-Norman and is home to many listed bui ...

'' and ''East Hampnett'' in Sussex. It thus first came to be used as a second name to indicate that a person came from one of these settlements. These names come in turn from the

Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, Anglo ...

words ''hēah'' ('high') and ''tūn'' ('estate, farmstead', thus meaning 'high farmstead') with the later addition of the Anglo-Norman diminutive suffix ''-et''.

Distribution

As of around 2011, 116 individuals had the surname ''Hannett'' in Great Britain, and none in Ireland. In 1881, 74 people in Great Britain had the name, being clustered in Lancashire, Lincolnshire, and Nottinghamshire.''The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland'', ed. by Patrick Hanks, Richard Coates, and Peter McClure, 4 vols (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), II, pp. 1190 .v. ''Hannett'' .

People with the surname

Arthur T. Hannett Arthur Thomas Hannett (February 17, 1884 – March 18, 1966) was an American lawyer and politician who rose to become the List of governors of New Mexico, seventh Governor of New Mexico, governor of New Mexico. Biography He was born on Febr ...

(1884–1966), US politician *

John Hannett John Hannett (born 23 June 1953) was General Secretary of the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers (USDAW). Early life and career Hannett was born in Liverpool in 1953. He was a Low Pay Commissioner from 2007 to 2018. He is a former m ...

(born 1953), English trade union secretary *

Martin Hannett James Martin Hannett (31 May 1948 – 18 April 1991), initially credited as Martin Zero, was an English record producer, musician and an original partner/director at Tony Wilson's Factory Records. Hannett produced music by artists including Joy ...

(1948–1991), English record producer * Rhonda Hannett, Australian basketball player

References

Given names {{surname-stub