- An old English name meaning “from the oak tree grove”
- Famous for poet Ogden Nash
- The name of a major city in Utah
- Used as both a personal name and a last name
More history of the name Ogden
Ogden is one of the several English names that come from the name of a tree — it comes from the oak tree.
The name is traced back to the Saxon word ock, meaning oak, and the word den, a local termination found in names in Kent, Sussex and other English counties, meaning a covert or feeding place. Thus Odgen means nothing more nor less than an oak grove.
It is given as proof of this theory that all the coats-of-arms borne by English families of the name Ogden show the device of an oak tree or an acorn.
However, the oak tree or acorn might have been used simply because of the similarity of the sounds, because the heralds who contrived coats-of-arms were very fond of punning.
This does not, however, disprove the theory that Ogden was derived from oak and den. That fact is we have enough substantiated without proof that a coat-of-arms might furnish.
There have been numerous ways of spelling the name — among them De Oketon, Oketone, Ocktone, Okedone, Okedon, Okeden, Oakden, Okeden, and even de Hoghton and de Hoton.
The name was first spelled Ogden as early as 1500, while some of the various other forms were used as late as 1738. At present, the name seems universally to be spelled Ogden.
The earliest of the name in England is said to have been Robert Ogden, who lived in Hampshire, England, about 1453.
