Surname: Hodcroft

Recorded as Hadcroft, Hodcroft and Odcroft, this is an English surname, and one which seems to be well recorded in the county of Lancashire. It is clearly locational although no such place in any of the known surname spellings has been positively identified. This is not entirely unusual. It is estimated that at least three thousand villages and even small towns have disappeared from the maps of the British Isles in the past five hundred years, and most have given rise to surnames.

The place name and hence the later surname probably means either Hadda's small farm, or Oda's small farm, with the prefix "H" being added in the Middle Ages as an aid to pronunciation. This is also found in such places as Huddersfield, formerly Oda's field.