Hazen

Hazen is a surname used as a first name. Its proposed Dutch and German connections include a route through Haas, meaning hare, and another through an older personal name associated with gray or dark coloring. These are alternative surname explanations, rather than a single phrase combining an animal with a color.

Hazen S. Pingree, a nineteenth-century mayor of Detroit and governor of Michigan, shows that Hazen has a history as a given name beyond today’s interest in Hayes and Hayden. His public career supplies a specific historical namesake, independent of the surname’s uncertain derivation. For a family with roots in Michigan, that nineteenth-century namesake offers an additional local connection alongside the surname history.