This surname is derived from the name of an ancestor. 'the son of Haldane' (Yonge). Haldanus, Essex; Haiden, Cheshire; Haldene, Yorkshire (Domesday).

Waldief fil. Haldeni. Pipe Roll, Henry II.

Haldenus Presbiter, ibid.

Haiden de Chillum, 1171: The Pipe Rolls, or Sheriff's Annual Accounts of the Counties of Cumberland, Westmorland and Durham during the reigns of Henry II, Richard I and John.

Haldin de Stalham, Yorkshire, 1273. Hundred Rolls.

Haldanus Minister, Norfolk, ibid.

Robert Haldeyn, Suffolk, ibid.

John Haldeyn, Suffolk, ibid.

In the Hundred Rolls the personal name (not surname) appears as Haldanus, Haldeyn, Haldeynus, and Haldoyn, all in Norfolk.

1747. Married — Morris Flood and Ann Haldin: St. George, Hanover Square.

(1) The name Healfdene, the 'Half-Danes,' an appellation of the Hocingas and the Secgans, who took part in the campaign against Finn in the lay of Beowulf, later became a common Old English personal name, Heal(f)dane, Latinized Haldanus. Halden filius Eadulf was one of the witnesses to Earl David's Inquisitio into the territorial possessions of the church of Glasgow a. 1124 (REG., I). Halden was steward of Earl Waldeve, 1178 (Bain, I, p. 151). In 1255 sixty acres of land outside the castle of Scardeburc were demised to Roger Haldane (ibid., 2030). Halden, a nativus or serf, was gifted to Kelso Abbey by Waldeve the earl (Kelso, p. 198). (2) Anderson (Sc. Nat.) says a younger son of the Border house of Hadden or Hauden (see under Howden) became possessed of the estate of Gleneagles, Perthshire, by marrying the heiress of that family and that Aylmer de Haldane de Gleneagles rendered homage, 1296. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the family were barons of some consequence in Perthshire, but the name is now rare there. David Hadden, tutor of Glennageis, was one of an assize, 1614 (Trials, II, p. 439). Distinguished bearers of this name are: Richard Burdon Haldane (1856—1928), first Visccunt Haldane; John Burdon Sanderson Haldane (b. 1892), professor of biometry, University College, London; and Miss Elizabeth Sanderson Haldane (1862—1937), the first woman justice of peace for Scotland (1920). Haddin 1477, Haldan 1816, Haldin 1650.

(Scandinavian)Half-Dane [Old NorseHálfdan - hálf-r, half + Dan-r, a Dane] This name was given to a person whose parentage; was half Danish. Its most notorious possessor was the Danish pirate- king (whose name was Anglicized H(e)alf- dene) who infested England in King Al­fred’s time and was at length killed A.D. 911 while returning from a plundering expedition.

The modern Norwegian form is Halvdan. heáh [great] Healfdene.—Beówulf, 113.

Halfdene, a name occurring in the Saxon annals, is considered by Ferguson to imply a Danish extraction on one side only-"half Dane." Hence perhaps the surname of the Scottish family. Among the tenants in chief in Norfolk, appears a Godwinus Haldein. Haldanus, Haldane, and other forms also occur in Domesday, principally in the eastern counties.

Robert Alden, Normandy, 1180-95 (Magni Rotuli Scaccarii Normanniae). See Hawtin.

From Halden; a location name in Kent Or from the Old Norse, Halfdan; a personal name.