The Hatch family has lived for at least six centuries in the Co of Kent, England. The family name is derived from the Anglo-Saxon noun HAEC, Middle English HACCHE, later HATCH meaning gate or wicket. The surname appears in the hundred of Calehill, Co. Kent, as early as 1327/8, the form during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries being ATTE HACCHE. It is clear that the name was originally assumed by a man who dwelt near or at some gate or wicket, such, for instance, as might have been found at the entrance to the village churchyard or to the grounds of the manor house.
 
The ancient family took its name from the place of its habitation in the parish of South Moulton, Devonshire, England. The earliest record of the name is found in the doomsday book of A.D. 1086 under the form Hacke in 1273. The name Richard de la Hacke appears in the rolls of Wiltshire and that of John Atte Hache in those of Oxfordshire.