While researching this one name study I come across many variant spellings that don’t quite meet my criteria, (hodl, hudel, hudes, hodel etc.) and most of which relate to folks with European roots – such as German, Dutch, Hungarian and so I don’t include them as part of my study . However I recently came across the name Hudles relating to a person I connect to my study, who had English roots and origins. It is closely related to one of my research variants, Hudless, but for the second “s”.
Investigating further, expecting to find a link to a European line, I was intrigued to delve into the etymology of the word huddle, which in Middle English was hudelen. And further, the verb meaning “to press together” was huderen or hoderen. The term huddle defines people gathering together in a bunch for safety, comfort or warmth and seeking protection or cover. It is related to the word hide which extends to become hiding place – in ME hudels, hidels. The term Middle English, by the way, denotes language that was spoken around 1100 – 1500.
The etymology of hood is found in these root words for huddle, safety, warmth, hiding. It was also spelled as hud or hod and eventually became hat.
If we go even further back into the Anglo Saxon era of the 7th Century, a popular name of the time was Odo (Scandinavian) spelled Otto sometimes (German). The name meant wealthy, rich and implied enjoying a comfortable life.
Later in England the name Odo morphed with usage into Huda, Hudd and Hoda. In the Middle Ages it was common to add the suffix -el to the end of a word to make it “little”, so Hudel would have meant little Huda. Or son of Huda. Adding an -es to further extend the word to hudeles you would have perhaps been referring to something belonging to Hudel – Huda’s son’s place. This ties the given names Odo/Huda etymologically to the adjective hodl or hudel since to be comfortable and wealthy was closely associated with being protected and safe, in those times.
The further back in the records, the more frequent is the use of the single vowel Hudless, Hodless and the closer it appears to link the surname to these ME words for huddle or place of safety and Huda, who had a son Hudel, who could be found at Hudeles place.