The Clan/Sept History

The Strongbownians added their own naming traditions to the eastern region of
Ireland to which they arrived. The impact of this new tradition was not
extremely disruptive to the pre-existing Irish tradition because the two had
many similarities. Both cultures made significant use of hereditary surnames.
And like the Irish, the Strongbownians often used prefixes to build patronymic
surnames, which are names based on the given name of the initial bearer's father
or another older relative. Strongbow's followers often created names that were
built with the prefix Fitz-, which was derived from the French word fils, and
ultimately from the Latin filius, both of which mean son. They also used
diminutive suffixes such as -ot, -et, -un, -in, or -el, and occasionally even
two suffixes combined to form a double diminutive such as -el-in, -el-ot,
-in-ot, and -et-in, to build patronymic names. The surname hackett is derived
from the medieval given names Hack or Hake. These English names were derived
from the Old Norse name Haki, which is a cognate of the English name Hook and
was originally given to someone with a hunched figure or a hooked nose. Before
being imported to Ireland, the surname hackett was chiefly popular in the
western midlands of England. The Gaelic form of the name hackett is Haicéid.

Since church officials and medieval scribes spelt each name as it sounded to
them; as a result, a single person could accumulate many different versions of
his name within official records. A close examination of the Origins of the name
hackett revealed the following spelling variations: Hackett, Hackert, Hacket,
Halkett and others.
First found in county Kilkenny, where they had been granted lands by Strongbow
for their assistance in the invasion of Ireland in 1172.
Ireland's Great Potato Famine left the country's inhabitants in extreme poverty
and starvation. Many families left their homeland for North America for the
promise of work, freedom and land ownership. Although the Irish were not free of
economic and racial discrimination in North America, they did contriBute greatly
to the rapid development of bridges, canals, roads, and railways. Eventually,
they would be accepted in other areas such as commerce, education, and the arts.
An examination of immigration and passenger lists revealed many bearing the name
hackett: Sir Robert Hacket settled in Barbados in 1678; Thomas Hackett settled
in Virginia in 1642; William Hackett settled in Barbados in 1680; Bernard,
Daniel, Francis, James, Michael.

Motto Translated: God is my hope.