Hayden Family History

Irish: shortened Anglicized form of Gaelic Ó hÉideáin ‘descendant of Éideán’ and Ó hÉidín ‘descendant of Éidín’ personal names apparently from a diminutive of éideadh ‘clothes armor’. There was also a Norman family bearing the English name (see 2 below) living in County Wexford. Alternative spellings include Hadden.

English: habitational name from any of various places called Haydon (Dorset, Wiltshire, Somerset, Gloucestershire), Heydon (Cambridgeshire, Norfolk), or Hayden (Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire). Most of the placenames derive from Old English hēg ‘hay’ or (ge)hæg ‘fence, enclosure’ + dūn ‘hill’, though the Cambridgeshire placename has Old English denu ‘valley’ as the final element.

Jewish: variant of Heiden.