Hudson

Son of Hudd, the Yorkshire patronymic carried into Hudson Bay.

Origin: Yorkshire & the Humber, England
Famous bearer: Henry Hudson (c. 1565-1611), English navigator; discovered Hudson Bay 1610; abandoned by mutinous crew at James Bay 1611
Register: English family

Territory of Hudson

CoreHistoric reach

The seat of Hudson

Seat vacant

Chief

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Current mission

No shared goal set yet. Once Hudson has leadership, it sets the public focus: a restoration, a gathering, a real-world project that helps its own.

The Hudson clan is being rebuilt. Join the waiting list for the movement today, and you help decide who leads it and what it does.

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What does the Hudson name mean?

Patronymic, son of Hudd (a Middle English diminutive of Hugh or Hudde, ultimately from the Germanic personal-name Hud-). The diminutive-plus-son patronymic Hudson belongs to the northern English -son patronymic group (Watson, Jackson, Wilkinson, Dickson) that crystallised into the hereditary surname across the fourteenth-and-fifteenth-century surname-fixation period. The Hudson surname is densest in the Yorkshire and Lincolnshire counties where the northern -son patronymic tradition was strongest.

The history of Hudson

Hudson is among the more characteristic northern English patronymic surnames, densest in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire. The Hudson byname (the son of Hudd, the diminutive of Hugh) crystallised into the modern hereditary surname across the late-medieval surname-fixation period.

Henry Hudson (c. 1565-1611), the English navigator-and-explorer of the early-seventeenth-century English-and-Dutch maritime-exploration period, made four voyages of Arctic-and-North-American exploration across 1607-to-1611: the 1607 Muscovy-Company Greenland-and-Spitsbergen voyage on the Hopewell, the 1608 Muscovy-Company Novaya-Zemlya voyage on the Hopewell, the 1609 Dutch-East-India-Company Hudson-River voyage on the Half Moon, and the 1610-to-1611 Discovery Company-of-Adventurers Hudson-Bay voyage on the Discovery. The Hudson-Bay 1610-voyage discovered the Hudson-Strait and the Hudson-Bay (the vast Arctic-Canadian inland-sea that has carried his name continuously since 1611), and ended in the June-1611 crew-mutiny that set Hudson and his son-John and seven other crew members adrift in a small open boat in the James-Bay region of the southern Hudson Bay, where they were never seen again.

Rock Hudson (Roy Harold Scherer Jr., 1925-1985), the Winnetka, Illinois-born American film-actor of Giant (1956) and Pillow Talk (1959), was the leading-American romantic-leading-man of the late-1950s Hollywood-studio-system. Kate Hudson (b. 1979), the Los Angeles-born American actress of Almost Famous (2000), is a contemporary American screen-actress of the modern era.

Notable bearers of the Hudson name

Henry Hudson (c. 1565-1611), English navigator; discovered Hudson Bay 1610; abandoned by mutinous crew at James Bay 1611
Rock Hudson (1925-1985), American film actor
Kate Hudson (b. 1979), American actress

Stories of Hudson

Henry Hudson and the discovery of Hudson Bay
1610
On the morning of Friday the third of August 1610, on the North-Atlantic at the approximately-60-degrees-north latitude west of the Resolution-Island coast at the eastern-entrance of what is now the Hudson-Strait, the approximately-forty-five-year-old English navigator Henry Hudson, the master of the small fifty-five-ton English-bark Discovery on the Company-of-Adventurers fourth-voyage in search of the Northwest Passage to the Pacific Ocean, sailed his Discovery vessel into the narrow Hudson-Strait between the Baffin-Island and the Labrador-Peninsula on the strength of his personal-conviction that the westward-running tidal-current on the Strait-eastern-entrance indicated a large-westward-running ocean-passage beyond. The Discovery sailed westward across the four-hundred-mile Hudson-Strait across August-and-early-September 1610, emerged on the second-of-August into the vast inland-sea (the Hudson Bay, approximately one-thousand-mile-long and five-hundred-mile-wide Arctic-Canadian inland-sea) that Hudson named for his Discovery-Company-of-Adventurers patron the merchant adventurer Sir Dudley Digges (the original-name Digges-Bay was renamed Hudson-Bay across the subsequent-Royal-Society-and-Hudson's-Bay-Company nomenclature-tradition), and across the September-1610 period sailed south down the east-coast of the Hudson-Bay to the southern-Hudson-Bay James-Bay region. The Hudson-Bay 1610 discovery is the foundational moment of the Canadian-and-British North-American Arctic geographical record and the foundational European-discovery of the vast inland-sea that has carried Hudson's name continuously since.
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Frequently asked

What does the surname Hudson mean?

Where does the Hudson family come from?

The Hudson family is rooted in Yorkshire & the Humber and East Midlands, in England. Within that, the name was particularly concentrated in West Yorkshire, North Yorkshire and Lincolnshire. The atlas page for the name records the historical territory it has held over the centuries.

Where did the Hudson family historically hold territory?

At its greatest historical extent, the Hudson name has been concentrated in East Riding & the Humber, London and Kent. The atlas page distinguishes the core territory of the name from this wider historical reach with hatched silhouettes on the map.

Is Hudson a England surname?

Yes, Hudson is a England surname. Its editorial home in this atlas is England, where the historical territory and family record of the name are concentrated.

How old is the Hudson surname?

Hudson is among the more characteristic northern English patronymic surnames, densest in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire. European hereditary surnames crystallised broadly between the 12th and 14th centuries, and the Hudson name took its modern form within that long settlement.

What is the Hudson family known for?

Son of Hudd, the Yorkshire patronymic carried into Hudson Bay. Hudson is among the more characteristic northern English patronymic surnames, densest in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire.

Who is the most famous Hudson?

The best-known bearer of the Hudson name is Henry Hudson (c. 1565-1611), English navigator; discovered Hudson Bay 1610; abandoned by mutinous crew at James Bay 1611. Other prominent figures of the family include Rock Hudson (1925-1985), American film actor and Kate Hudson (b. 1979), American actress.

Who are some famous Hudsons?

Notable bearers of the Hudson name include Henry Hudson (c. 1565-1611), English navigator; discovered Hudson Bay 1610; abandoned by mutinous crew at James Bay 1611, Rock Hudson (1925-1985), American film actor and Kate Hudson (b. 1979), American actress. Each is profiled on the family page, with cross-links to the geography, stories, and historical events tied to their life.

What stories are told about the Hudson family?

The Hudson family is associated with Henry Hudson and the discovery of Hudson Bay. Each story has its own page on this site with the full account, the date, the location, and the other families involved.

What is the story of Henry Hudson and the discovery of Hudson Bay?

On the morning of Friday the third of August 1610, on the North-Atlantic at the approximately-60-degrees-north latitude west of the Resolution-Island coast at the eastern-entrance of what is now the Hudson-Strait, the approximately-forty-five-year-old English navigator Henry Hudson, the master of the small fifty-five-ton English-bark Discovery on the Company-of-Adventurers fourth-voyage in search of the Northwest Passage to the Pacific Ocean, sailed his Discovery vessel into the narrow Hudson-Strait between the Baffin-Island and the Labrador-Peninsula on the strength of his personal-conviction that the westward-running tidal-current on the Strait-eastern-entrance indicated a large-westward-running ocean-passage beyond. The Discovery sailed westward across the four-hundred-mile Hudson-Strait across August-and-early-September 1610, emerged on the second-of-August into the vast inland-sea (the Hudson Bay, approximately one-thousand-mile-long and five-hundred-mile-wide Arctic-Canadian inland-sea) that Hudson named for his Discovery-Company-of-Adventurers patron the merchant adventurer Sir Dudley Digges (the original-name Digges-Bay was renamed Hudson-Bay across the subsequent-Royal-Society-and-Hudson's-Bay-Company nomenclature-tradition), and across the September-1610 period sailed south down the east-coast of the Hudson-Bay to the southern-Hudson-Bay James-Bay region. The event is dated to 1610.

Where is the Hudson surname found today?

England is the primary historical home of the Hudson surname. In the modern era, the name is also borne across the wider diaspora, particularly in the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, where families carry the line of descent from the same England origin recorded on this page.

What does the Clan Rising page for the Hudson family cover?

The Clan Rising page for the Hudson family covers the meaning of the surname, the historical geography of the name, famous bearers of the name, traditional stories and the seat of the head of the family. Each section is linked to the underlying atlas of England so the name can be read in the geography that shaped it.

Who is the head of the Hudson family today?

The seat for the head of the Hudson family is currently vacant on this register. Clan Rising is rebuilding the chief and family structure for the modern era, and the family page allows readers to claim the seat or pledge to the name.