Hough

Hough is a surname of English and Scottish origin. It is commonly considered to be toponymic, derived from Old English hoh, meaning a hill, promontory, or bend in a landscape. Over time the spelling has produced variants such as Hogue, Haugh, and Howe, and bearers of the name have migrated to many English-speaking regions.

The Hough transform is a widely used method in computer vision and image analysis for detecting shapes such as lines, circles, and more complex curves in images. It works by converting points from image space into a parameter space, where potential shapes are identified by accumulations of votes corresponding to shape parameters. When many points lie along a common geometric feature, their corresponding parameter values converge, making the feature detectable even in noisy or incomplete data. Variants include the probabilistic Hough transform and the circular Hough transform, which adapt the approach to different shapes and computational constraints.

Geographically, the name Hough appears in place names and localities, particularly in the United States. The best-known example is the Hough neighborhood in Cleveland, Ohio, which has been associated with significant urban and civil rights events, including the 1966 Hough riots. Beyond this, various streets, districts, and features bear the name Hough in different regions, reflecting the surname’s historical presence in local toponymy.

In culture and modern times, individuals bearing the surname Hough have contributed across fields such as politics, science, and the arts, and the name appears in fictional and educational contexts as a recognizable family name.